Tiki-Torch Charges Are Prosecutorial Abuse

Just yesterday, I explored why it was bad for Chuck Schumer and other Democrats to laud political mobs on their own side while bringing felony charges carrying significant jail time against political mobs on the other side — even when that meant throwing the book against people who committed no acts of violence. Well, here we are a day later, and we have news that criminal charges have been brought against three far-right protesters at the infamous 2017 Charlottesville tiki-torch rally. These men were extradited from Texas, Ohio, and South Carolina to Virginia and charged with . . . marching with tiki torches:

This is an insane and abusive prosecution, and quite likely unconstitutional. There are a couple of immediate warning signs. First, even the Washington Post account describes this as “a rarely enforced criminal statute.” In fact, searching for either the statute cited or its text, I could not find a single published court opinion arising from a prosecution under Va. Code § 18.2-423.01 in the two decades since its enactment. Second, the elected prosecutor specifically pledged, when he was running for office, to prosecute these defendants. James Hingeley, the commonwealth attorney for Albemarle County, was elected after pledging in 2019 to bring charges his predecessor wouldn’t: “There are so many people in our community . . . who were there on August 11 who were terrorized by torch-wielding terrorists. . . . There’s a law, a burning objects law, that says they can be prosecuted but our prosecutor’s not doing that.” Funny how the people who claim to be so scandalized by the “lock her up” chants keep running for office publicly promising to lock up particular people.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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Just yesterday, I explored why it was bad for Chuck Schumer and other Democrats to laud political mobs on their own side while bringing felony charges carrying significant jail time against political mobs on the other side — even when that meant throwing the book against people who committed no acts of violence. Well, here we are a day later, and we have news that criminal charges have been brought against three far-right protesters at the infamous 2017 Charlottesville tiki-torch rally. These men were extradited from Texas, Ohio, and South Carolina to Virginia and charged with . . . marching with tiki torches:

This is an insane and abusive prosecution, and quite likely unconstitutional. There are a couple of immediate warning signs. First, even the Washington Post account describes this as “a rarely enforced criminal statute.” In fact, searching for either the statute cited or its text, I could not find a single published court opinion arising from a prosecution under Va. Code § 18.2-423.01 in the two decades since its enactment. Second, the elected prosecutor specifically pledged, when he was running for office, to prosecute these defendants. James Hingeley, the commonwealth attorney for Albemarle County, was elected after pledging in 2019 to bring charges his predecessor wouldn’t: “There are so many people in our community . . . who were there on August 11 who were terrorized by torch-wielding terrorists. . . . There’s a law, a burning objects law, that says they can be prosecuted but our prosecutor’s not doing that.” Funny how the people who claim to be so scandalized by the “lock her up” chants keep running for office publicly promising to lock up particular people.