Burning Hate: Denial, Anger, and Plea Bargaining

This is an update in the Burning Hate series - stories of the men who marched with tiki torches on August 11, 2017. Read the introductory piece here. Read the first, second, third, and fourth installments.

In the month since the first indictments against some of the men who marched with tiki torches at the University of Virginia on August 11, 2017 were unsealed, we've seen five indictments and two guilty pleas. Outside the courtroom, there have been furious screeds about free speech from right wing bloggers, but little indication from the actual defendants or their attorneys that a First Amendment defense is a viable path forward at trial.

The reactions from extreme right wing media online have been unsurprising. In a piece for the white nationalist publication VDARE, Anne Wilson Smith (a Unite the Right attendee who wrote a revisionist history of the rally and also happens to be the daughter of League of the South co-founder Clyde Wilson) wrote that the prosecutions are part of the "Democrat Party’s communist coup against the Historic American Nation" and that torchlight parades are "an American tradition." A blog post by the host of the nazi podcast 'Full Haus' called the arrests "persecution" by a "Soros-funded" prosecutor and encouraged defendants to pursue a First Amendment defense, but should that fail, to do their time rather than "sell out to save your neck" and cooperate.

Sarah Cain, a youtuber who goes by "Crusader Gal" in her fight against the "decline of the West," wrote for the reactionary Catholic Crisis Magazine that the charges are "a type of terrorism" and a "weaponization of the justice system." Cain refers to James Alex Fields Jr, the man who murdered Heather Heyer, simply as an "aggressive driver." National File, a conspiracy theory blog covertly run by Alex Jones, doubled down not only on the George Soros angle, but leaned into long debunked conspiracies about the murder of Heather Heyer and claimed the torch wielding "pro-white demonstrators" were "immediately attacked by a mob of Antifa militants."

In an error-riddled piece for National Review, the baseball crank himself, Dan McLaughlin, called the prosecutions "insane and abusive" and "quite likely unconstitutional." McLaughlin writes that the marchers were "like the Nazis who marched at Skokie, Ill in the 1970s," "peaceably demonstrating their racist ideas," and that "there was no violence at the Friday-night rally with the tiki torches." Famously, that planned march in Skokie, Illinois never actually took place, which would explain why it was so peaceable. As for McLaughlin's claims about the torchlit mob in question, it's unclear whether he's failed to familiarize himself with the ample video evidence of violence and the freely available court transcripts containing testimony from people who were hurt that night, or if he just assumes his readers prefer to believe a lie.

Glen Allen, a Maryland-based attorney who lost his job with the city of Baltimore when his longtime membership in the neo-nazi organization National Alliance came to light and currently represents several members of Patriot Front, alleged in a blog post that Judge Claude Worrell's race was a factor in his decision to deny bond for Tyler Dykes. Users on the neo-nazi online forum Stormfront vaguely insisted this is yet another Jewish plot to destroy them and lamented that similar prosecutions should be brought against Black Lives Matter protesters before the thread devolved into an argument over sovereign citizen legal tactics. Users on the anonymous forum 4chan mocked Dykes' decision to plead guilty, believing he would have been better off fighting the case, with some posters believing it could make it to the Supreme Court to win a favorable ruling. On RedState, William B Crews, the former NIH staffer forced into retirement when the Daily Beast uncovered the prolific anti-Fauci online troll was employed by the agency, wrote that the event was "a legitimate political act that turned violent because of the actions of “counter-protesters.”"

Across sites and platforms, from 4chan to National Review, the pundits and commenters seem to agree: this just isn't fair to the white man.

Plea Deals

Despite the overwhelming confidence of the aggrieved reactionary voices online, it seems the defendants themselves do not believe a jury would see protected free expression in a video of screaming men with torches giving stiff armed Hitler salutes in between throwing punches and swinging lit torches. Both Tyler Dykes and Wil Smith have already entered guilty pleas.

There is a sort of script to a court proceeding, particularly the process of entering a guilty plea. Every guilty plea, regardless of the courtroom you're sitting in or the judge on the bench, is preceded by a series of questions from the judge - Are you the person charged with this offense? Do you fully understand the charges against you? Have you had enough time to discuss with your lawyer any possible defenses to the charge? There are rarely any surprises at this stage (although I'll never forget the change of plea hearing for Richard Preston, the Klansman who discharged his gun during the Unite the Right Rally. When the judge asked the defendant if he was aware that the charge carried a sentence of 2-10 years, his attorney looked shocked, blurting out "I thought it was 5!").

Even though I know they're reading from a script and the answers will be predictable, even though I've heard it dozens of times, I always transcribe this part for my notes:
"Are you pleading guilty because you are in fact guilty of the crime charged?"
When asked this question by Judge Cheryl Higgins, both Tyler Dykes and Wil Smith answered, "Yes, your honor."

The first of the defendants to face extradition back to Albemarle County was also the first to take a plea. Wil Smith was indicted on the burning object charge in February 2023, but he was already sitting in the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail when the indictment came down, having been extradited from Texas the month prior after years as a fugitive. In June of 2018, a grand jury indicted him on a more serious felony stemming from his conduct on the night of the torch march: "malicious release of gas" for pepper spraying the trapped counter protesters.

On May 3, 2023, Smith entered into a plea agreement. In exchange for pleading guilty to the burning object charge, a class 6 felony with a maximum sentence of 5 years, the Commonwealth's Attorney would drop the malicious release of gas charge, a class 3 felony with a maximum sentence of 20 years. The agreement allowed Smith to be released from custody to return home to Texas until his sentencing hearing in August. There was some initial reporting that mistakenly indicated the plea agreement required Smith to cooperate in ongoing investigations, but the only 'cooperation' requirement read into into the record during the hearing was regarding his own presentence report, a document prepared by the probation office to assist the court in determining the appropriate sentence. The plea agreement may contain other provisions, but at the request of the Commonwealth's Attorney's office, it was entered under seal. Smith will return to Virginia on August 7 for a sentencing hearing.

Tyler Bradley Dykes was the second defendant to enter a guilty plea and the first to receive a sentence. After a disastrous bond review hearing during which the Commonwealth proffered that Dykes was a person of interest in a case involving swastika-covered flyers in South Carolina, that he was under investigation by other law enforcement agencies, and had been actively engaged in white supremacist organizing on the day of his arrest, Dykes was returned to the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail. On May 25, a month after Judge Worrell denied bond, Dykes entered into a plea agreement.

Tyler Dykes pleaded guilty to the charge of burning an object on public property with the intent to intimidate, a class 6 felony. He was sentenced to the maximum of 5 years, with all but 6 months suspended. With Virginia's good behavior sentence reduction credits and credit for the time he served in South Carolina prior to his extradition, he will likely be released in July, having served about 4 months of active incarceration. The 'suspended' part of a suspended sentence means that if Dykes violates his release conditions, he could end up serving the entire 5 years. Upon his release later this summer, Dykes will have 1 year of supervised probation and 5 years of good behavior. As was the case for Wil Smith, the terms of Dyke's plea agreement were entered under seal.

With two cases pled out, there are currently three ongoing cases against defendants indicted for the August 11, 2017 torch march at the University of Virginia. There may be additional cases that have not yet been unsealed or additional indictments being sought, a possibility that has some members of that night's mob proactively seeking legal advice. But for now, wild speculation aside, we just have these three.

The cases against Dallas Medina, William "Billy" Williams, and Ryan Roy will proceed with a status hearing on June 5. Dallas Medina has retained Mike Hallahan, a former cop turned defense attorney and the only lawyer I've ever seen a judge send out of a courtroom for a time out. William "Billy" Williams has retained Ryan Rakness, a former Orange County assistant Commonwealth's Attorney turned defense lawyer. Ryan Roy's case is listed as having an appointed public defender. Both Roy and Medina are out on bond and are expected to travel back to Charlottesville to appear in court next week. Williams will be transported to court from the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail where he is being held without bond.