The Trial of the Spokane 3: ‘The entire weight of the United States government’

As they walked into the courtroom for the reading of the verdict, Justice Forral cradled their copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. Bajun Mavalwalla II, smiling, gave his father Bajun Mavalwalla I a long hug at the threshold of the gate separating the gallery of the courtroom from the well. Jac Archer, the last to arrive, hurried in to take their place at the defense table, taking just a brief pause to connect with their loved ones in the front row.

Minutes later, a predominantly white jury made up mostly of people who don’t live in Spokane, would find all three protesters guilty of federal conspiracy charges — a felony that could result in potential sentences of up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Archer was found guilty of conspiring to prevent an officer from doing their duty, conspiring to injure the property of an officer to impede them in their duty and aiding and abetting another to conspire to impede or injure officers. Forral was found guilty of conspiring to prevent an officer from doing their duty, conspiring to injure the property of an officer because they were doing their duty, conspiring to injure the property of an officer in order to impede them in their duty and aiding and abetting another to conspire to impede or injure officers. Mavalwalla was found guilty solely of aiding and abetting the conspiracy for their roles in the June 11 protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Before the verdict reading, the judge had warned the packed gallery that there were to be no outbursts. The audience in the courtroom largely obeyed: the verdicts were initially met with a shocked stillness in the air. Then, quiet weeping, muffled as people tried to choke back their sobs.

The federal prosecutors cleared out quickly, as the defendants and their legal teams packed up their paperwork and their belongings. The defendants, their friends, family, legal teams and supporters were slower to leave the courtroom. One of Forral’s lawyers was crying silently. A half-used roll of toilet paper was passed back and forth as people tried, in vain, to dry their eyes. 

When the court finally cleared, the toilet paper roll was left behind, sitting alone on the short barrier that divides the gallery from the well.

“I was shocked by the verdict,” said Aine Ahmed, one of Mavalwalla’s attorneys, who was not in the courtroom on Thursday. “ I was on the plane when [co-counsel] Matt Duggan texted me and said ‘Guilty,’ and I thought he was lying. I've had some unexpected verdicts in my life, but nothing like this.”

Andrew Wagley, one of the attorneys representing Archer, said their team was “floored,” by the jury’s decision. “ We were feeling fairly confident that it was gonna be an acquittal,” he said.

Ahmed, Wagley and Andrea George, Forral’s lawyer, all told RANGE that this was not the end of the road, though George could not be reached for additional comment today. All three will be filing Rule 29 motions, asking Judge Rebecca Pennell to acquit their clients. 

A political prosecution

The indictment of the original nine protesters — six of whom took plea deals — has been criticized as politically motivated. While dozens of protesters were arrested on local charges on June 11, the federal arrests didn’t come until July 15. This was roughly a month after the Justice Department sent a June 12 memo to federal prosecutors across the country directing them to prioritize and publicize prosecutions of anti-ICE protesters. 

Former acting US attorney for eastern Washington Richard Barker resigned rather than sign the indictment, telling the Guardian, “I didn’t feel in this case that a conspiracy charge that would carry a six-year term of incarceration was true to who I was or wanted to be as a federal prosecutor.”

After the verdict, Barker wrote in a statement to media:

“Although I respect the judicial process and jury’s verdict, I question whether justice truly was served. This was the first conspiracy prosecution in Eastern Washington history under 18 U.S.C. Section 372 — a Civil War-era law dusted off to punish members of the Spokane community who stood up for two young men who were unlawfully detained by ICE. I hope that moving forward [the] DOJ will focus on the crimes that matter most to keep our families safe and to build trust with the communities that most need and deserve law enforcement protection.”

As the protesters and their supporters left the courtroom, Mavalwalla’s father, who is currently a congressional candidate running in a crowded primary to unseat Rep. Michael Baumgartner, spoke passionately to the distraught crowd.

 “The prosecution suppressed the most important salient facts in this case. Number one: that the first US attorney, Richard Barker, resigned rather than to prosecute this case, and that information was suppressed from the jury.” Mavalwalla senior said. “People in Spokane, people in Eastern Washington need to understand that we were guinea pigs, that they brought the swamp of Washington, DC into our area to stop American citizens from exercising our rights that are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.”

Pete Serrano, who identified himself as First Assistant United States Attorney in his press release (but whose actual title is prefaced with Special Attorney to the Attorney General of The United States because he was never confirmed by Senate) wrote in a Friday press release:

“Our office’s sole motivation for the charging and prosecution of these individuals was to hold them accountable to the law as each attorney in this office has sworn an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution. This case was brought by my office, was agreed upon by the grand jury, and concluded with a multi-day trial by jury because the alleged crimes were committed. Statements made by current or former public officials who never set foot in the courtroom during the trial bear no relevance to these facts or the outcome of this case.”

Serrano was present one day in the courtroom, sitting between two US Marshals in the back of the room on Wednesday, the day many thought the verdict would be returned.

Mavalwalla’s attorney Ahmed, a former assistant US attorney of Eastern Washington himself, called Stephanie van Marter — the former Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington who initially signed the indictment before Serrano took over — “ethically challenged.” 

He told RANGE that he had tried to negotiate a plea deal with the government for his client, but they refused to offer any deal that would not require Mavalwalla to say before a judge that he’d used force against an officer. Ahmed asked his client to consider taking a misdemeanor deal. 

“And Bajun, ethically, he’s so strong, he said, ‘you’re asking me to lie to a federal judge, and I’m not going to do that,’” Ahmed said. 

At the end of the trial, after all of the evidence had been presented, Ahmed thought there was no way there would be a guilty verdict, and that the charges themselves were extreme. 

 ”I didn't think the government proved any sort of conspiracy, and I don't think joining arms is a conspiracy, and I couldn't believe the government was relying on that during their closes,” Ahmed said. “ I thought the whole verdict against Mavalwalla was surreal and frankly, I thought it was surreal against the other two as well. If not a single police officer got hurt and none of them were involved in damaging property, I just don't even know how you charge this case.”

Across the country, protesters arrested on similar charges in Illinois had their case thrown out amid accusations of prosecutor misconduct and the Trump administration recently created a slush fund to pay people like January 6th insurrectionists who say they were victims of government weaponization (though that was quickly paused by a judge.)

In his press release, Serrano pointed to the jury decision as evidence that the conviction wasn’t political:

“For 250 years in this country, we have turned to juries to resolve those disagreements. Here, twelve individuals from across our community heard 8 days of evidence and concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that these three defendants committed the crime as charged, that they agreed to impede law enforcement officers and injure their property as they did their jobs … Just because the jury did not find in a way that some people wanted, does not negate the fact that a crime occurred.”

Still, community activists pointed to the jury selection process, which pulled jurors from across Eastern Washington — an area politically more conservative than the city of Spokane, where the protest occurred — as being unfair to the defendants. 

This is a quirk of the sheer size of the district, which spans 20 Washington counties.

“ If you're in Spokane County Superior Court, then you have jurors just from Spokane County,” Archer’s lawyer Wagley said. “When you're in federal court, you have jurors anywhere east of the Cascades because it's all the Eastern District of Washington.”

The jury was also predominantly white in a case where all the defendants were people of color. Two of the defendants identify as nonbinary and at least one juror had written on their jury questionnaire that he had concern about people who use nonbinary pronouns.

The First Amendment question

Key in courtroom proceedings was the prohibition on arguments or testimony invoking the First Amendment. As RANGE reported before the trial began, Pennell ruled that questions of the First Amendment were the court’s purview, not the jury’s. 

“No witness should testify regarding the ultimate issue of whether Defendants’ actions were legal or constitutionally protected. Nevertheless, should Defendants elect to testify in this case, they must be given some leeway,” her pre-trial decision read, in part. “Defendants must be allowed to testify as to their mental state regarding the charged offense. This can be done without Defendants summarily explaining that they intended to obey the law or that they intended to exercise their First Amendment rights.”

Still, the defense had hoped that limited explanations of the First Amendment and protected speech Pennell included in the jury instructions would help the jury see their clients’ speech as Constitutionally protected. 

 ”We are extremely disappointed in the verdict and what it means for the First Amendment. The verdict does not reflect the evidence presented at trial and Jac Archer's non-violent, peaceful actions on June 11th, 2025,” Wagley said. “This outcome has a substantial chilling effect on an individual's First Amendment right to free speech, including the right to protest. If Jac Archer can get convicted of a felony conspiracy for linking arms, the Constitution no longer applies.”

Because an intent to use “force, threat or intimidation,” is required to convict defendants of conspiracy, Archer’s defense team has consistently pointed to evidence showing that Archer’s intent was nonviolent protest. However, because Archer did come in with “an agreement,” to do acts of civil disobedience — though not an agreement to use force, threat or intimidation — Wagley thinks that could have been confusing for jurors. He pointed to videos and voice memos introduced by the federal government of Archer saying things like “for those willing to risk arrest.”

“ I could see how a jury could see that and think, ‘Well, that's advocating for lawless action,’ but it's not. It's advocating for civil disobedience, which is clearly protected, and that's what I think that’s got to come down to, is the court setting aside the verdict based upon the First Amendment,” Wagley said. “Because otherwise, if protesters can get prosecuted and convicted for civil disobedience for a federal felony conspiracy, there's just - the First Amendment doesn't mean anything anymore.”

Archer’s team, which also includes attorney Carl Oreskovich, had filed a preliminary Rule 29 motion — a rule that allows defendants to ask for summary acquittal on the grounds that the evidence presented isn’t sufficient for a jury to convict — after the federal government rested their case. This motion cites a 9th Circuit of Appeals ruling that states:

“Peaceful speech, even speech that urges civil disobedience, is fully protected by the First Amendment. Were this not the case, the right of Americans to speak out peacefully on issues and to petition their government would be sharply circumscribed.”

The motion also argued that the characterization of a protest as a conspiracy violates the right to the Freedom of Association. 

After the verdict, Pennell gave defendants an additional two weeks to amend or file new Rule 29 motions, the government two weeks after that to respond, and the defense a final week to respond to the government’s response. The judge set July 2 as the deadline for the end of this process, after which she will schedule a hearing to rule on the motions to acquit. 

For Archer, Forral and Mavalwalla, the Rule 29 hearings could be just the next step in a lengthy legal process that has already taken nearly a year of their lives. All legal teams have indicated that, should the judge rule against the motions to acquit, they will appeal the convictions — another expensive, labor-intensive step. 

In a Facebook comment responding to a statement where City Council President Betsy Wilkerson wrote that the verdict “concludes an important chapter in case that has drawn significant attention and no doubt strong feelings throughout the community,” Archer wrote just six words:

“Respectfully, nothing about this is ‘concluded.’”

Mavalwalla’s father, too, said his family would continue to battle the charges.

“Now the fight has to begin in earnest,” the elder Mavalwalla said Thursday from the federal courthouse courtyard. “We have extraordinarily brave people here today. Jac and Justice and my son have taken the brunt of the entire weight of the United States government onto their shoulders on our behalf.”

Though they spoke at an informal community gathering later in the evening, Forral chose not to address the crowd directly after the verdict. Instead, they handed their friend and fellow activist David Brookbank the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird they’d carried throughout the trial, pointing out a passage they asked Brookbank to read. 

Voice strong as he stood before the community, Brookbank read:

 ”I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway, and you see it through, no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”