Protests in D.C. on Inauguration Day. (Photo by Scott Heins)

More than 200 protesters still face a slew of felony charges and the threat of decades in prison following a series of demonstrations on Inauguration Day, though lawyers for 21 of them are calling for prosecutors to dismiss charges against their clients.

“This indictment does not allege that the moving defendants personally destroyed property or engaged in violence, nor does it allege that the moving defendants said anything to urge others to do so,” the motion to dismiss reads.

“Rather, the indictment seeks to hold the moving defendants criminally responsible for participating in a large group protest and simply failing to walk away when a small number of other individuals in the group allegedly broke the law.”

On January 20, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, D.C. Police arrested 230 people in connection with what the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. has called a “violent riot,” which caused more than $100,000 in damages to buildings, property, and vehicles, and minor injuries to six officers.

Ultimately, 214 people have been charged with a series of felony charges including inciting or urging to riot, rioting, conspiracy to riot, and destruction of property, with some additionally charged with misdemeanor assault on a police officer. Legal observers in the District have called the en masse felony charges a departure from recent practice.

The most recent indictment, filed in late April, includes the names of some defendants allegedly involved in specific instances of defacement of property, like breaking the windows of a limousine.

It also included three new defendants, one of whom is a web designer whose home was searched by MPD officers in April. MPD does not comment on ongoing investigations.

But many of the people arrested that day and in the following weeks say that they didn’t have anything to do with the property destruction, and the government has no evidence to the contrary, despite prosecutors mining data from more than 100 phones confiscated during arrests. These people facing dozens of years in prison are calling the felony charges a form of guilt by association.

That’s why their lawyers say the indictment is “littered with fatal, irremediable defects” in the motion to dismiss—namely the fact that “not a single act of alleged violence or property destruction, and not a single utterance alleged to have ‘incited’ those acts, is attributed to any moving defendant.”

Dead City Legal Posse, a group founded to support defendants as the cases wind through the legal process, alleges that the charges are political in nature.

“We still believe these charges are politically motivated and specious at best,” says Sam Menefee-Libey, a member of Dead City Legal Posse. It’s one of about a dozen support groups that have popped up for defendants, by his count.

For instance, one “overt act” in the latest indictment is chanting “‘Fuck it up,’ ‘Fuck Capitalism,’ and ‘Whose streets? Our streets’ prior to, during, and after acts of violence and destruction,'” per the indictment.

The group has also been pushing for an investigation into D.C. Police actions on Inauguration Day, as recommended by the Office of Police Complaints. Some protesters have also filed a class action lawsuit against MPD for false arrests and “indiscriminately and repeatedly” using chemical irritants against protesters without warning.

Menefee-Libey says that “the vast majority of defendants are organized and have committed to not taking cooperating plea deals.” The first cases have been scheduled for trial in March 2018.

A portion of the defendants, however, have already accepted plea deals—a total of six individuals have accepted plea deals, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. Most of those deals involve pleading down from felonies to misdemeanors.

So far, prosecutors have one felony guilty plea. Florida man Dane Powell, 31, pled guilty at the end of April to breaking windows and throwing a heavy object at uniformed law enforcement, as well as “being part of a group of rioters who moved approximately 16 blocks over a period of more than 30 minutes,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He will be sentenced on July 7.

There are two status hearings scheduled for Wednesday, and more defendants could accept plea deals then, per the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C.

Motion to Dismiss by Rachel Kurzius on Scribd

Updated with the number of plea deals, per the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C., and the non-redacted motion to dismiss.