Jury has been selected in the civil trial against the organizers of the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville
By Mark Morales, CNN
A jury has been selected in the civil trial that will decide whether organizers behind the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally will be held responsible for the violence that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The plaintiffs, who include town residents and counterprotesters injured in two days of clashes, contend the organizers of the rally engaged in a conspiracy. The nine individuals are seeking “compensatory and statutory” damages for physical and emotional injuries they suffered.
The plaintiffs are represented by a large team of powerful lawyers under the umbrella of the nonprofit Integrity First for America.
The 12 jurors were selected after being grilled with questions over three days.
US District Court Judge Norman Moon asked probing questions to jurors that tried to expose their feelings about racism, the Black Lives Matter movement, antifa, White nationalism and whether they had already decided who was responsible for the violence.
Attorneys for both sides sent questions to Moon to help weed out potential jurors. Moon dismissed many potential jurors who couldn’t get out of work, ran their own businesses and couldn’t be replaced, or had physical hardships,such as recovering from Covid-19.
And those dismissals were in addition to anyone Moon felt was too biased to sit on the jury, an issue that came up repeatedly during selection.
“It took a little longer than expected, but that’s all right,” said Moon of the jury as he dismissed the court for the day.
With the jury now in place, opening statements are slated to start Thursday morning at 9 a.m., according to Moon.
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CNN’s Linh Tran contributed to this report.
