Cop City domestic terrorism charge dismissed over speedy trial and due process rights violation

This story has been updated.

A DeKalb County Superior Court judge dismissed the domestic terrorism charge against Cop City protestor Jamie Mariscano on Thursday, saying the 29-month delay in prosecuting the charge violated Mariscano’s Constitutional right to due process and a speedy trial.

Judge Gregory A. Adams dismissed the charge without prejudice, meaning the Georgia Attorney General’s Office can refile at a later date, if it chooses to.

Jamie Marsicano and 22 others were arrested March 5, 2023, at a Stop Cop City music festival in the South River Forest; the following day, they were all charged in DeKalb County with domestic terrorism. These charges have yet to be brought before a grand jury for indictment and have remained over the heads of those arrested for nearly two and a half years. Marsicano, who uses they/them pronouns, filed a motion to dismiss, which was argued in court on Aug. 6.

Before or after someone is arrested, a law enforcement officer signs a warrant affidavit with a charge or charges for their alleged offense. For felony charges, prosecutors must later present evidence to a grand jury, which then decides whether there is probable cause for the charge to go to trial. de

While the DeKalb County domestic terrorism charge remained unindicted, Marsicano twice made a demand for a speedy trial: once on March 1, 2024, and again on May 1, 2025. Despite those demands, prosecutors did not move forward with the case. 

The domestic terrorism charges were brought jointly by the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office (DA) and the Georgia Attorney General’s Office (AG). The DA’s office originally took the lead in prosecuting during the bond hearings following the March 5 arrests; however, in June 2023, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announced that her office would not be pursuing the music festival domestic terrorism charges, citing differences in “prosecution philosophy” with the AG’s office. Though DeKalb had withdrawn, the AG’s office continued the prosecution.

Two months later, the AG’s office indicted Marsicano and 60 others under Georgia’s Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in neighboring Fulton County for their alleged actions in protest of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, colloquially referred to as “Cop City.” The indictment cites the alleged facts around Marsicano’s March 5, 2023, arrest as acts of the racketeering conspiracy. 

“The state of Georgia is trying to take two bites at the apple,” Marsicano’s attorney, Xavier T. de Janon, said after Wednesday’s hearing. “They’re trying the same set of facts in Fulton County.”

Attorney General’s office intentionally delayed indicting Cop City domestic terrorism charges, defense argues 

The lengthy delay in moving forward with the domestic terrorism charge is intentional, according to de Janon. 

By trying the RICO case in Fulton County first, de Janon said, the State can test out witnesses and evidence before moving forward on the DeKalb County domestic terrorism case. 

De Janon also argued that prosecutors were using the ongoing unindicted status of the domestic terrorism case to collect additional evidence that will then be used in the racketeering trial, thus avoiding dealing with closed discovery windows. 

Deputy Georgia Attorney General John Fowler, who is the lead prosecutor in both the RICO and domestic terrorism cases, denied that the State was intentionally delaying the DeKalb case for any tactical advantage. He argued that the ongoing domestic terrorism investigation was due to the complexity of evidence, which includes 14 terabytes of data and millions of documents from the FBI. 

The judge’s order agreed with de Janon, saying, “The Attorney General’s Office appears to have delayed this matter in order to gain a tactical advantage over the defense.”

Prosecutors’ delay has impacted Marsicano’s life and career

The domestic terrorism charge has led to particularly prejudicial treatment for Marsicano, de Janon argued Wednesday. 

After Marsicano was charged with domestic terrorism, they were banned from their law school campus at the University of North Carolina. They were able to attend virtual classes at UNC, and a nearby university permitted them to take classes on its campus, provided they were only on campus for that purpose. They also struggled to find work and housing. Despite these barriers, Marsicano graduated from law school in May 2024 and passed the North Carolina bar in February 2025. 

But Marsicano still can’t practice law. 

In April, the North Carolina Board of Law Examiners told Marsicano that they wouldn’t pass Character and Fitness while the domestic terrorism charge remains pending. 

“These pending charges are causing their professional career to be halted, paused to a stop,” de Janon said. “This is more prejudice than a normal defendant. This should amount to extraordinary circumstances that should require this court to dismiss the domestic terrorism charges.”

Judge Adams agreed, saying on Aug. 6, Marsicano’s inability to move forward with their legal career “is creating a burden upon [them].”

In a prepared statement following the Aug. 6 hearing, Marsicano stressed that they are not alone in struggling to deal with the impact of the domestic terrorism charges. “We got a window into some of what these charges have meant for me today in court,” Marsicano said, “but there are more than 40 others who are dealing with baseless terrorism charges … All of these people have their own universes of struggle and barriers that this political prosecution has directly caused.” 

Meanwhile, Marsicano has also filed a demand for a speedy trial in the Fulton County RICO case. They are among the next four defendants prosecutors anticipate bringing to trial; however, no future trial dates have been scheduled as of the time of publishing.