“The Point is to Weaponize the Legal Process”: A Call to Defend the Atlanta 61

Call to stand in solidarity with the Atlanta 61, who face trumped up charges following the movement to stop Cop City.

In about two weeks, the Atlanta 61 will be called before another judge. They will be meeting this judge for the first time following their indictment 19 months ago for imaginary crimes in defense of the Atlanta forest. This judge will perhaps rule at some point on the state’s conspiracy theories about the movement to stop cop city and defend the forest, or perhaps he will not. Maybe some other judge will take his place as he now takes the place of the one before him—and maybe this whole top- heavy system will come crumbling down around us with no court ever making a ruling in the state’s RICO conspiracy indictment of the ATL 61.

A ruling isn’t actually necessary, because the point of the state’s conspiracy indictment against the ATL 61 is to weaponize the legal process against the cop city defendants. Undue process in the form of pretrial detention, restrictions on defendant behavior as conditions for bond, requirements for court appearance (requiring travel if you happen to have a bond condition to stay out of Atlanta), and a drawn-out process just completed to replace the judge presiding over the case are all tactics that effectively subvert the due process rights of the ATL 61. Defendants can demand a speedy trial-and one of them did—but that defendant is in the same status hearing with everyone else more than a year and a half later.

Imaginary Crimes Speaking Tour kicks off THIS FRIDAY at 5 pm with a talk and panel discussion at the Murph (561 W Whitehall St).Followed by a benefit show at 8 pm at SBC.Stay updated here:www.instagram.com/sccimainarycrimestour/Fundraisers and more info:linktr.ee/sccimaginarycrimestour

— (@fireantmovement.bsky.social) 2025-04-02T16:48:14.583Z

The state is without conviction and on pretense as flimsy as finding mud on people’s shoes, unilaterally imposing an undefined and uncertain sentence on sixty-one people, and so holding this fear of undue process against anyone who stands in the way of cop city’s project to increasingly militarize policing of protests.

The state has used this strategy of undue process to suppress protest for a long time. Bail funds proliferated during the civil rights movement as a measure to defend people against the state’s weaponization of the legal system. That these funds offer some measure of effective defense is demonstrated by the state’s targeting of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund in May 2023 with a S.W.A.T. style raid and trumped up charges for money laundering—all of which were so absurd that they have already been dropped, though the three ASF defendants remain indicted among the ATL 61.

Then, in June 2024 Georgia effectively banned bail funds from operating in the state when governor Kemp signed senate bill 63, leading the Bail Project to suspend operations in the state until a judge temporarily delayed implementation of that portion of the law pending a lawsuit.

The state is clearly committed to protecting the effectiveness of undue process as a deterrent to protest.

Using the Law as a Weapon

Weaponization of the legal system enables the state to deprive people of liberty even when they are not counted among the half-million people that are in pre-trial detention right this minute. Even when people have cash for bail, they must submit to bond conditions that vary from person to person, but might restrict their movements for years. Some of the ATL 61 have found it difficult to get a job, been doxed online, and are prohibited from contacting certain people—sometimes people they have never even heard of.

Until recently, perhaps there could have been some question as to whether the state’s breaking of its contract with the people of the United States might be repaired. Perhaps there could have been some question whether some long arduous process of reform might curtail prosecution for profit and whether the coming decades might see more and more people freed from arbitrary imprisonment. If that reformist theory of change was ever inspiring—and it truly is for many people, it is hard to believe in all that now.

Most importantly, we have to keep showing up for those facing RICO and other charges. There's a status conference that all defendants are currently required to come back for on 5/14 – please help pack the court if you're in ATL!!!

— pre-order no cop city, no cop world? (@micahh.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T15:18:55.298Z

Now, when the ATL 61 are showing up for yet another court appearance in this indeterminate and terrifying slog through undue process; and now, as the state accelerates its attacks on due process by rounding people up and sending them to prison in El Salvador, it is ever harder to believe these pieces can be glued back together.

Showing Up in Solidarity

What do people do if they are concerned with their neighbors being swept off the streets into faraway prisons? One of the things that people can do is stand in solidarity with the ATL 61 on the morning of May 14th, as they arrive in court at the Fulton county courthouse in Atlanta, GA.

Today, Atlanta officials cut the ribbon on Cop City, a $117-million police militarization facility. It cost four times the original estimate—not counting the person murdered by police and the 61 people facing trumped up RICO charges.And that's just the beginning.crimethinc.com/CopCity2025🧵⬇️

— CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective (@crimethinc.com) 2025-04-30T04:05:45.608Z

Because now is a good time to defend people who are fighting and building life-affirming societies and ecologies. Now is a good time, here in this place that used to be the United States, to act in defense of one another.