Pleadings The plaintiffs claimed that their civil rights had been violated as the organizers had urged those attending to arm themselves and partake in violence. The plaintiffs sought both
compensatory and
injunctive relief from the trial. The defendants all sought to dismiss the case, claiming that the tactic was equivalent to "
lawfare" to silence them and hurt them financially.
Discovery To demonstrate the claims that the organizers colluded to incite violence, plaintiffs turned to the social media tools used by the organizers, and to anonymous users that communicated with them on alt-right servers on the
Discord application. Many of these Discord messages were obtained and distributed to the press by the media collective
Unicorn Riot, which collected more than one thousand screenshots of the Discord servers used during the time of the rally's planning. The plaintiffs requested
subpoenas to Discord to reveal the identity of about 30 users. At least one of those users
moved to quash the subpoena, arguing they had the right to engage in anonymous speech through Discord. In August 2018,
U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero denied the motion to quash the portion of the subpoena seeking the identity of the senders, but granted the motion to quash the subpoena seeking the contents of the messages based on the
Stored Communications Act. The identities were ordered to be kept confidential. Spero wrote that "While even limited disclosure of this information may create some
chilling effect, the protections available through a designation of 'highly confidential' mitigate that harm, and Plaintiffs' interest in this information, which is relevant to testing their claims of an alleged violent conspiracy based on racial and religious animus, outweighs the potential harm to [Jane Doe's] right to association". On April 26, 2019, U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel C. Hoppe gave defendant Jeff Schoep seven days to comply with plaintiffs' discovery requests after they alleged he was avoiding producing court-ordered evidence in the lawsuit. Vanguard America were forced to pay over $16,000 for not supplying documents as requested, and Matthew Heimbach and Elliot Kline were ordered to pay over $12,000. Kline also was jailed in
contempt of court for refusing to provide documents as ordered. During the discovery phase, Cantwell made violent antisemitic threats against the plaintiff's lawyers,
Trial Jury selection for the trial began on October 25, 2021. Opening statements began on October 28. Altogether, plaintiffs spent approximately two weeks calling witnesses; the defense spent two days doing the same.
Holocaust historian
Deborah Lipstadt testified to connections between historical antisemitism and contemporary political themes.
Chatham University Associate Professor and extremism researcher Peter Simi appeared as an expert witness to describe the importance of violence to the ideology of the white supremacist movement, and the strategy within the movement of claiming violent statements are jokes to try to create
plausible deniability. Fields, the perpetrator of the car attack, refused to testify. Defendants called a member of the League of the South and a Charlottesville police officer. On November 19, the jury entered deliberations with 11 jurors instead of the usual 12, as one juror was forced to quarantine as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Verdict The jury reached a mixed verdict on November 23, 2021. They
deadlocked on the first two claims, to determine whether defendants had engaged in a federal race-based conspiracy. Jurors found all defendants liable on the third claim, of
civil conspiracy under Virginia state law. Jurors awarded $500,000 in punitive damages against each individual defendant, and $1million against each organization in relation to that charge. The final two claims only applied to Fields, the perpetrator of the car attack. Jurors found that he was liable for assault and battery and intentional infliction of harm, and awarded a total of $12million in damages against him. Following the verdict, lawyers for the plaintiffs said they intended to try the defendants again on the two claims that could not be decided.
Appeals Richard Spencer filed a
pro se appeal brief on March 17, 2023, arguing that holding the trial in Charlottesville denied him the right to a fair trial. Christopher Cantwell filed a pro se appeal on March 20, 2023, arguing that the jury held "improper passion and prejudice", and that he couldn't adequately prepare his defense as he had been imprisoned on
unrelated charges at the time of the trial. Plaintiffs also filed a notice of appeal, intending to challenge the reduction in damages. == References ==