ATL61: ‘Cop City’ RICO judge hears arguments over evidence and discovery issues 

Evidence and discovery issues were the focus of two court hearings held Wednesday for the 61 people charged under Georgia’s Racketeering-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for their alleged actions in a multi-year protest against the ‘Cop City’ police and fire training center in Atlanta.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kevin M. Farmer took over the RICO trial in early May after the Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams was transferred to a different court. A grand jury indicted the 61 defendants—collectively known as the ATL61—in August 2023, who were then arraigned in November. In the year and a half since the arraignment, defense attorneys have filed over 250 motions, many of which have not been ruled on. 

Farmer’s task is to break up the sprawling case into manageable pieces for trial. Wednesday’s hearings were held to begin working through the backlog of motions and the overwhelming amount of discovery produced by prosecutors. 

The 61 defendants will be tried in groups of five. Prosecutors said they would have the breakdown of trial groups in the next two weeks. 

The group of defendants anticipated to be tried include Marlon Kautz, Savannah Paterson, and Adele MacLean—organizers with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund who are collectively known as the Sol Fund 3—along with Brooke Courtemanche and Sonali Gupta. 

Defense says physical evidence obtained during raid should be thrown out

Much of Wednesday’s first hearing focused on a motion made to throw out evidence obtained during a May 30, 2023 police search warrant raid on the home of the Sol Fund 3. 

During the search, police seized a massive volume of documents. Don Samuels, who was the Sol Fund 3’s attorney at the time of the raid and currently represents Kautz, told the Court Wednesday that officers went beyond the bounds of their search warrant, saying police used the warrant “as a key to get in the door.”

“They went in the house and emptied it,” Samuels said in court. Police seized nearly 8,000 documents, he said, which exceeded the bounds of the search warrant, including medical records, therapy notes, diaries, books on police brutality, and correspondence with imprisoned people. 

Prosecutors agreed that police seized documents outside the bounds of the search warrant, but contended the number of irrelevant documents was far lower than Samuels stated. Deputy Attorney General John Fowler said the books on police brutality and the prison letters contained discussions of anarchy and violence, making them relative to motive and intent. Other seemingly unrelated documents seized, Fowler said, were tied to alleged charity fraud. 

Judge Farmer expressed concern over the sheer volume of possibly unrelated documents seized during the raid. “Why did they take these people’s diaries from high school and college,” he asked. “In hopes they were thinking about money laundering in the tenth grade?”

Samuels told the court that none of the extraneous documents seized had been returned to the defendants. 

Farmer also questioned prosecutors over a lack of body camera footage from the raid, the existence of which he said could clarify officers’ actions and address the credibility of both sides’ claims. 

Farmer will rule on the defense’s motion in the coming weeks and mused his decision will be appealed by the losing side. 

“Either way I rule,” Farmer said, “it sounds like the Georgia Supreme Court is going to have the opportunity to suss it out.” 

Defense attorneys argue massive, disorganized discovery hampers effective defense

The size, state and nature of discovery was the core issue at hand in the second hearing, which began at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

Prosecutors have turned over more than ten terabytes of evidence since November 2023. Defense attorneys said the evidence is disorganized and duplicative, sometimes including corrupted files or files that cannot be opened on regular computers. Farmer summarized defense attorneys’ issues with discovery as, “the way it’s being provided is tantamount to it not being provided at all.” 

To address the disorganization of discovery, Farmer ordered prosecutors to use Bates Numbering—a system that assigns individual numbers to each piece of evidence. He also ordered prosecutors to provide defense attorneys a list of evidence that will be used against their clients at least 30 days before the respective client goes to trial. 

Farmer said he will consider hiring an outside consultant to assist defense attorneys and himself in navigating discovery, the cost of which could come from either the Georgia Attorney General’s (AG) Office or the Georgia Public Defender Council. 

Deputy AG Fowler mentioned budgetary issues within the AG’s Office, but Farmer dismissed those concerns. 

“Maybe that should have been thought of before we brought a case of this scope,” Farmer said. 

What’s next in the ‘Cop City’ RICO trial?

Farmer said he anticipates the next set of hearings to cover demurrers—commonly called motions to dismiss—within the next two weeks. 

Trial schedules may be further complicated; at least four defendants—Priscilla Grimm, Spencer Liberto, Jamie Mariscano and Phillip Flagg—have filed new speedy trial demands, citing deprivation of Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment constitutional rights. Though defense attorneys brought up the new speedy trial motions Wednesday, Farmer did not say when he would rule on them or how they may impact trial scheduling. 

One defendant, Ayla King, filed for a speedy trial in 2023. King’s trial is expected to begin in August.