If you think your right to stand on a sidewalk and yell at the government is safe, you need to look closely at what just happened in a Washington federal courtroom.
A jury in Spokane just convicted three anti-ICE activists of felony conspiracy. They didn't assault an agent. They didn't weapons-smuggle. They blocked a bus and tried to stop the deportation of two local men. Yet, they now face up to six years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
This case wasn't a standard local trespassing or disorderly conduct dispute. It was a calculated test of a aggressive federal strategy designed by the Trump administration to transform routine, non-violent civil disobedience into a high-level felony conspiracy. The government won. Because they won, the rulebook for American protests just got rewritten.
The Strategy Behind Dusting Off Civil War Laws
The federal government didn't use modern anti-terrorism laws or standard rioting statutes to convict Jac Archer, Bajun Mavalwalla II, and Justice Forall—the activists known locally as the Spokane Three. Instead, prosecutors dug up 18 U.S.C. Section 372. This is a Civil War-era law designed to stop armed insurrections and conspiracies to impede federal officers from doing their duties.
The June 2025 protest sparked when a former city council president posted a call to action on Facebook. Two legal immigrants were being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and prepped for transfer to a facility in Tacoma. A crowd gathered to block the vehicles. Over 30 people were arrested. Six took plea deals. The Spokane Three refused to back down, believing their actions fell squarely under protected speech.
The federal strategy here is simple but terrifyingly effective. Proving a conspiracy usually requires evidence of a pre-planned agreement to commit a crime. In this case, there was zero evidence that the three defendants even spoke to each other before showing up at the protest.
The prosecution argued that by simultaneously standing in front of the ICE transport van and refusing to move, they formed a spontaneous conspiracy.
"By this logic, any protest could be a conspiracy," notes Robert Chang, executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality. "The goal posts keep moving."
What Happened Inside the Courtroom
The trial lasted two weeks, exposing deep rifts within the local legal community. The tension was high enough that Richard Barker, the acting U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington, resigned his post rather than sign the indictment. He stated plainly that no agents or protesters were hurt, questioning whether justice was actually served by deploying such heavy-handed charges.
Inside the courtroom, the legal boundaries were tight. U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pennell ruled that the defendants could not use the First Amendment as a legal defense. They could tell the jury why they were there, but they couldn't argue that their actions were constitutionally protected.
The prosecution built its case on hours of law enforcement body camera footage. They paraded ICE agents to testify that they feared for their safety, despite the lack of injuries.
Then came the messy part. Local media outlet Range uncovered old social media posts from one of the government’s star witnesses, ICE Agent Jeremy Burlingame. The posts were ugly. He called Black politicians "lying ghetto garbage," labeled transgender individuals "mentally ill," and shared images of agents arresting a pregnant woman at gunpoint with the caption "pregnant invader."
The posts were so toxic that federal prosecutors had to recall their own witness to impeach him on the stand. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Cartier-Giroux called the posts "horrendous" in open court.
You'd think a compromised star witness and a total lack of prior communication between the defendants would tank the government's case. It didn't. In conservative Eastern Washington, the narrative of a mob obstructing law enforcement carried the day. After 24 hours of deliberation, the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts.
The Real-World Consequences for Future Demonstrations
This conviction changes how federal prosecutors can handle political dissent across the country. It creates an explicit roadmap for cracking down on left-leaning protests, environmental blockades, and immigration demonstrations.
Consider how this played out elsewhere. In Chicago, federal prosecutors brought similar conspiracy charges against anti-ICE protesters at a facility in Broadview. But in that case, the Justice Department backed off, dropped the felonies, and proceeded with minor misdemeanors.
Spokane was different because the government pushed the envelope and won. They proved that they don't need a paper trail or encrypted chat logs to secure a felony conspiracy conviction. They just need video of a crowd acting with a shared disruptive purpose.
If you are planning to attend a protest, sit in at a politician's office, or block a road for a cause you believe in, the legal landscape is no longer the same. The line between a misdemeanor citation and a multi-year stint in a federal penitentiary has officially blurred.
Defense attorneys for the Spokane Three have filed a Rule 29 motion asking the judge to throw out the verdict due to insufficient evidence, and an appeal is certain. But for now, the precedent stands.
If you want to protect yourself while exercising your rights, keep these shifts in mind:
- Understand local risks: Federal prosecutors are looking for test cases in jurisdictions with conservative jury pools to set national precedents.
- Differentiate your actions: Under current interpretation, closely mirroring the physical blocking actions of people around you can be legally interpreted as joining a "spontaneous conspiracy," even if you don't know them.
- Document everything: Independent video footage remains the most vital tool to counter law enforcement narratives regarding force and intimidation during chaotic demonstrations.
