When 'Mostly Peaceful' Crosses Into Conspiracy: The DOJ Finally Reads the Riot Act |
Thirty-plus years in courtrooms as a designated expert witness and a lifetime coaching young men on rugby and football fields teaches you something about lines. Draw one and enforce it consistently, and character develops. Blur it because it's politically inconvenient, and chaos follows. The Justice Department's prosecution of anti-ICE protesters on federal conspiracy charges isn't authoritarian overreach. It's a correction that is long overdue, applied to years of letting "mostly peaceful" demonstrations morph into coordinated efforts to nullify federal law.
The Spokane case goes to trial this week, May 18, 2026, and what happens in that courtroom matters well beyond eastern Washington. Nine defendants, the so-called Spokane 9, were originally charged with conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers after the June 11, 2025 protest outside ICE's Spokane facility, where a crowd blocked transport vehicles carrying two legal asylum seekers to a Tacoma detention center. Six of the nine have since pleaded guilty. Three — Bajun Mavalwalla II, Justice Forral, and Jac Archer — chose trial. Prosecutors point to coordination, real-time communication, and actions that went beyond chanting slogans: blocking driveways, surrounding transport vans, and throwing police-deployed smoke canisters back at officers.
Critics immediately reached for the First Amendment. They should reread Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) first. The Supreme Court drew an explicit line: speech is protected unless it is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to produce it. Handing out signs is protected speech. Coordinating to physically block federal officers executing lawful immigration procedures crosses that line. Courts have........