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Racketeering charges against 61 people indicted as co-conspirators in the Stop Cop City movement were dismissed on December 30, marking a significant victory for those facing prosecution in the years after the movement’s peak.
The dismissal comes after more than two years of attempted prosecution that sought to convict protesters who opposed Atlanta’s sprawling police training facility, known as Cop City, as an organized criminal enterprise. In September, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kevin Farmer said from the bench that he planned to dismiss the charges, but the decision was only made official this week.
The original indictment was brought in 2023 and targeted dozens of people that the state described a vast and coordinated criminal group that opposed not only Cop City but police and the government as a whole.
In the years since, activists and organizers have faced uncertainty as the state has delayed trials, changed prosecution tactics and made procedural missteps. But Tuesday’s news came as a breath of fresh air for those facing charges.
“When we got the oral decision in September we celebrated, we were so relieved and so happy,” Xavier de Janon, a lawyer representing former RICO defendant Jamie Marsicano and member of the People’s Law Collective, told Unicorn Riot. “When we got the written order yesterday it was like reliving those moments.”
In September defense lawyers argued that the prosecution lacked the authority to charge defendants under Georgia’s RICO, or Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations, Act asserting that the attorney general could not bring such charges without approval from the governor.
Judge Farmer agreed. In the order issued Tuesday, he dismissed the charges as procedurally invalid, ruling that the neither the statue’s language nor the state’s constitution give the attorney general authority to prosecute RICO charges without the governor’s permission.
Under Georgia law, the attorney general can only pursue RICO charges like the ones brought against Cop City opponents in matters of people or groups “dealing with or for the state.”
At the September hearing prosecuting attorney Chris Carr argued that the protesters were, in fact, “dealing with the state” as a result of their activity towards state employees and property. Farmer disagreed, writing in his order:
“The [Attorney General] would have the court define “deal with” as “engaging with” the state. It argues that any time the state is an alleged victim of a crime, the definition of “deal with” is satisfied. “Deal with” should be include [sic] when someone “deals with” an angry (or misbehaving) child. To stretch the definition of “deal with” to this length would lead to absurd results and give the AG much broader powers as those set forth in the state constitution and the limited number of statutes that give the AG express power to prosecute crimes[…]”
Accordingly, Farmer did not accept Carr’s argument that Cop City opponents were dealing with the state, and warned that such an interpretation could lead to overly zealous prosecutions in the future.
The ruling dismisses the RICO charges, but doesn’t address related arson charges that some are facing. In September lawyers argued that the same language appears in the state’s arson laws and that those charges, which appear in the same indictment, should be thrown out too.
Farmer agreed that the arson charges were likely brought in error along the same lines as the RICO charges, but didn’t issue a decision in his written order.
The state could re-file RICO charges with permission from the governor, and may appeal Farmer’s ruling.
And while he and others are celebrating the legal win, de Janon is uncertain about the future of the case given the state’s erratic moves up to this point.
“The RICO has been dismissed, we’ll see what happens next week,” de Janon said.
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