Jury awards millions in damages against white nationalists for injuries caused during "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville

After a monthlong trial, a jury in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville found the white nationalists liable on four counts in a lawsuit filed by nine people who suffered physical or emotional injuries during two days of demonstrations.  The jury awarded more than $25 million in damages for the injuries suffered after violence that erupted during the 2017 Unite the Right rally.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs invoked a 150-year-old law passed after the civil war to shield freed slaves from violence and protect their civil rights. Commonly known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, the law contains a rarely used provision that allows private citizens to sue other citizens for civil rights violations.

For more coverage you can check:  Politico. Jurist, NPR, ABA Journal, The Guardian, Above the Law, and Democracy Now.