Nearly three months ago, an Eastern Washington jury found three Spokane protesters guilty of federal conspiracy charges for their roles in a protest last summer. Now, all three will soon be headed back to court as their lawyers have filed a slate of legal motions requesting the verdicts be overturned.
Jac Archer, Justice Forral and Bajun Mavalwalla II were convicted of the federal felony “conspiracy to impede or injure officers” for protesting against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) detainment of two young Venezuelan asylum seekers on June 11, 2025. The charge carries a potential maximum sentence of six years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine or both.
Nine people were originally arrested on federal conspiracy charges, but six took plea deals, leaving the trio often called the “Spokane 3” to stand trial.
For the Spokane 3, the guilty verdict was not the end of a nearly yearlong legal process. It marked the beginning of an even more arduous one.
Immediately after the verdict, Judge Rebecca Pennell ruled that the three defendants would be released on their own recognizance as their legal teams worked on post-trial motions, including legal filings to request the judge overturn the conviction based on insufficient evidence from the government.
All three have spent the summer free but in legal limbo.
Archer spoke at the monthly local NAACP meeting about their case and has continued to work for Spokane Community Against Racism, now as its policy advisor. Forral held a second “While I’m Out” comedy show. Mavalwalla II appeared on the campaign trail with his father, Bajun Mavalwalla, who was running to represent Washington’s 5th Congressional District.
There has also been movement behind the scenes. Three lawyers from Lowell and Associates — the firm founded by prominent Washington DC lawyer Abbe Lowell to defend high-profile clients targeted by President Donald Trump — joined Archer’s legal team.
While the original deadline for post-trial motions was July 2, it was repeatedly extended to give the court time to finalize and share the transcriptions of the trial with the legal teams, according to court filings. Mavalwalla’s lawyers had already submitted his post-trial motions. On Friday night, just before the court’s final deadline, lawyers for Archer and Forral filed a slate of motions.
The federal government has a standard two weeks to respond to the filings — though they can request more time — and once they submit responses, the defendants will have another two weeks to respond. Pennell will review the filings and is expected to schedule a hearing at which lawyers can present arguments before she rules.
Archer’s legal team has requested a hearing for November 18, 2026, at 10 am.
The filings
All three defendants filed motions under Rules 29 and 33 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. A Rule 29 motion asks the court to overturn the verdict and dismiss the case based on insufficient evidence, while a Rule 33 motion requests a new trial entirely — should the court not dismiss the case. Though the defendants were tried together, each is making a slightly different case about why their verdict should be overturned or a new trial granted.
Jac Archer
Archer was convicted of knowingly agreeing to use force, threat or intimidation to injure federal property, but their Rule 29 motion argues both that Archer’s conduct was First Amendment-protected speech and that, even if it was not, the government presented insufficient evidence to sustain the conviction.
As they did in closing arguments, lawyers for Archer’s case highlighted what they called the “long and proud history of civil disobedience” in the United States.
Like Henry David Thoreau refusing to pay taxes that might support slavery, Susan B. Anthony voting when it was illegal for women to do so and Martin Luther King Jr. protesting segregation despite official orders, Archer made a decision to peacefully risk arrest to stand against something immoral, their Rule 29 motion argues.
If their conviction stands, “the tradition of civil disobedience that has shaped U.S. history will be irreparably chilled,” the motion states.
Because conspiracy is essentially a thought crime — one that requires the government to prove a defendant’s intent, rather than actions — Archer’s lawyers also argued that there was insufficient evidence to prove they intended to use force, threat or intimidation at the protest. Rather, Archer advocated the opposite, repeatedly telling people to stay calm and stay nonviolent, they say.
“Archer’s conduct never threatened or resulted in violence,” the motion reads. “Even if the government could have proved that some demonstrators agreed to use ‘force, intimidation, or threats,’ it still failed to prove that Archer knowingly joined any such agreement, let alone that they intended to do so. … The government’s theories of ‘force’ lack merit and would transform virtually any form of civil disobedience — physical or otherwise — into force.”
Should this request for acquittal fail, Archer has also submitted a Rule 33 motion, which asks the court for a new trial. This motion points directly to Pennell’s order that neither party could mention politics, stating that pre-trial rulings limiting Archer’s speech deprived them of their right to present a complete legal defense.
Defendants were also not allowed to challenge whether ICE agents were engaged in the lawful scope of their duties, which “tacitly assume that ICE officers needed to engage in pushing and other tactics to discharge their duties,” the motion reads.
The motion also argues that there were other errors in the trial, including improper First Amendment jury instructions and misstatements of law and fact made by the government in their closing statements.
If Pennell rules in favor of the Rule 33 motion, Archer would receive a new trial entirely.
Justice Forral
Forral received the broadest guilty verdict of the three defendants. The jury found Forral guilty of conspiring to prevent a federal officer from performing their duty, conspiring to injure a federal officer’s property because of that duty, conspiring to injure a federal officer’s property to impede that duty and aiding and abetting a conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers.
In a sweeping, 78-page omnibus motion, Forral’s lawyers ask Pennell to acquit Forral under Rule 29, grant a new trial under Rule 33 or dismiss the case under a statute that bans political prosecutions
The request for acquittal makes arguments similar to Archer’s: that a guilty verdict with the evidence presented would violate Forral’s First Amendment rights, and that the government failed to present enough evidence of conspiracy to begin with.
“The government’s case has a fatal evidentiary gap: it contains no evidence whatsoever of any agreement to use force, intimidation, or threats — or to injure federal property. That’s because there was no such evidence,” the motion reads, accusing the government of prosecuting those who “made the most noise.”
Forral’s lawyers argue that prosecutors’ arguments relied on protected political speech, like Forral calling ICE agents “Nazis” and sending what the defense characterized as “standard-issue, nonviolent calls to protest” over Signal. Using this as evidence of a conspiracy is infringing upon Forral’s First Amendment rights, the motion argues.
“There is an ocean’s difference between civil disobedience and a violent conspiracy against federal power,” it reads. “What happened at Cataldo is a paradigmatic example of the former.”
The filing also challenges the government’s use of videos and still images that appear to show Forral letting air out of the tires of a transport bus. Because the bus was owned by federal contractor GEO Group and not the federal government, this act should not have been considered evidence that Forral conspired to injure the property of federal officers; the property they injured was not owned or used by federal officers, just civilian contractors.
If Pennell declines to grant an acquittal, Forral’s lawyers argue that a new trial should be granted under Rule 33, citing insufficient evidence, prosecutorial misconduct and what they call “a grave risk that the verdict rests on constitutionally-impermissible grounds.”
The motion argues that the conspiracy statute was “meant to protect against treason and [Ku Klux] Klan terrorism” and that the court should not let the government use it to “cow like-minded citizens into submission.”
Finally, Forral’s lawyers argue that the case should be dismissed with prejudice — which would prevent it from being retried later. They point to a statement released after the verdict by former US Attorney Richard Barker, who resigned rather than prosecute the Spokane 3.
Barker said the charges were brought “to punish members of the Spokane community who stood up for two young men who were unlawfully detained by ICE.”
Forral’s motion characterizes this as “a direct acknowledgment that the decision to prosecute was based on impermissible factors,” and argues that the case itself should be dismissed with prejudice.
Bajun Mavalwalla II
Mavalwalla, who didn’t know anyone at the protest before attending, was convicted solely of “aiding and abetting another to conspire to impede or injure an officer.” This means the jury found that the government failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mavalwalla himself had been a part of a conspiracy, but that he had knowingly assisted people who were part of a conspiracy.
Mavalwalla’s lawyers filed their motions in June, shortly before the original deadline. They argue that Mavalwalla should be acquitted under Rule 29 due to insufficient evidence. How could he have knowingly participated in a conspiracy, the motion argues, if he had no prior communications with anyone else at the protest?
The motion also dissects evidence used against Mavalwalla in the trial, wading into the minutiae of the case. It made essentially the same arguments as the other defendants’ motions, claiming things like linking arms or running to stand in front of a specific gate of the ICE facility are protected speech, not evidence of a conspiracy.
His lawyers also object to prosecutors attributing statements heard in videos to Mavalwalla when the speaker cannot be clearly identified — things like “the police isn’t coming to help you,” and “block the exits.” Those statements should have been stricken from the record, the motion argues.
The motion further challenges the aiding-and-abetting theory under which Mavalwalla was convicted, noting that it was not included in the indictment or early drafts of the jury instructions. His lawyers argue that the final instruction did not make sufficiently clear that prosecutors had to prove Mavalwalla knew a conspiracy existed before he could be convicted of aiding and abetting it.
“The verdict itself makes no sense,” the motion reads. “The jury obviously believed that the Defendant had not directly conspired with anyone and the evidence indicated that he caused no force, threat, or harm to be used or assisted anyone else to employ such tactics.”
Mavalwalla’s lawyers also accuse the prosecution of acting in bad faith, both during the trial and in the grand jury indictment. They reference a grand jury transcript RANGE has not been able to independently obtain or verify, alleging that Mavalwalla is not mentioned until page 24 of the transcript, in which an agent incorrectly claims Mavalwalla entered ICE property and pushed an agent. The motion also accuses the prosecution of misquoting Mavalwalla’s Reddit posts during the trial.
Finally, his lawyers also filed a Rule 33 motion for a new trial, if Pennell rules against their motion for acquittal.
“This prosecution and the ultimate verdict were political,” the motion reads. “The smell of unethical conduct permeates the whole case, including its presentation.”
The thirteenth juror
The Biden-appointed Pennell holds all the cards. In some cases when a jury’s guilty verdict is contrary to the law or the evidence provided, it allows the court to act, deciding if the evidence presented was actually sufficient to prove each required element of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
Functionally, Pennell becomes a “thirteenth juror” — a legal term often used to refer to a judge’s responsibility to address “manifest injustice” in the courtroom — and is able to create a deadlock that overturns the conviction. This is the equivalent of a hung jury, which means defendants could still be retried on the same charges without violating double jeopardy laws. Ruling in favor of either the Rule 29 or 33 motions would be a way of exercising this power and overturning the jury’s verdict.
Before the trial began, Pennell signaled that she knew she would have critical rulings to make in this case after the jury returned a verdict. Perhaps the most significant is on the First Amendment question. The federal government petitioned Pennell to bar defendants from saying things like “I wanted to exercise my First Amendment rights” during trial, stating that what is and is not First Amendment-protected speech is up to the court to decide, not the jury.
At the time, Pennell agreed in part. Defendants and witnesses were permitted to testify about their intentions — for example, that they intended to attend a protest or did not intend to intimidate anyone — but could not characterize their own conduct as constitutionally protected. She said this was to keep the jury from being confused about the complex legal question of whether or not their conduct at a protest was constitutionally protected or not.
Now those legal questions return to Pennell.
She has the power to decide whether the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to sustain the convictions, as well as the arguments that the prosecution was politically motivated and that the trial was botched — arguments that the jury itself were also not permitted to hear. She also has the jurisdiction to rule on whether defendants’ conduct was protected by the First Amendment.
If she leaves the convictions intact the legal teams are prepared to appeal their convictions, lawyers have told RANGE.
If she sides with the three protesters on the Rule 29 motion to overturn, the federal government may have appellate options of its own. If she grants a Rule 33 motion for a new trial, prosecutors could seek to retry the defendants before a new jury.
Pennell could also reach different conclusions for each defendant, leaving some convictions intact while overturning others.
There is national precedent for judges acting as that thirteenth juror to overturn a jury’s verdict, but there is also local precedent, upheld by the 9th Circuit of Appeals.
In July of 1993, right here in Spokane, a man named John Hunter was convicted of possession with intent to distribute more than 50 grams of cocaine. Court records show Spokane Police Department SWAT team officers claimed they found “a baseball-sized bundle of crack cocaine,” in his jacket pocket in a second search after he was booked in jail, even though an earlier strip search found only $460 cash and a small bag of marijuana.
Hunter said that the cocaine was not his, was not found in his jacket and had instead been brought in by an officer later.
About a year after his conviction, the 9th Circuit upheld the trial judge’s decision to grant Hunter a new trial. That court is where the Spokane 3 case will be heard if Pennell upholds the conviction.
The ruling in Hunter’s case states that “[t]he task of safeguarding the rights of criminal defendants ultimately rests with the experienced men and women who preside in our district courts.” It also states a court may grant a new trial if “the evidence preponderates sufficiently heavy against the verdict that a serious miscarriage of justice may have occurred.”
