First 6 defendents acquitted of all charges in first J20 trial

Video: the scene outside the courthouse and two interviews with former defendents

On the 21st of December, after a trial lasting well over a month, the jury returned a verdict in the first of the many J20 trials: all six defendents not guilty on all counts.

The jury has thrown Jennefer Kerkhoff's "novel legal theories" about proximity to protest being somehow unlawful back in the government's face. There are 188 more defendents still facing serious charges, but the government has taken a serious defeat in this first trial.

For nearly 1,000 years the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers has been a defense against the unchecked power of kings and nobles who sought to try their enemies in courts where they themselves sat in judgment. While one poster on Twitter compared this to the "the first transport is away" moment in Star Wars/The Empire Strikes Back, this is still a major strategic defeat to Trump, Sessions, and Kerkhoff.

This trial also showed direct police collaboration with the alt-right, and key figures in MPD following neo-Nazi Twitter accounts and telling racist jokes about Barry Farms residents.