A federal civil jury on Monday mostly cleared a group of six defendants on trial for their roles in the so-called Trump Train that followed a Biden-Harris campaign bus in Texas in 2020, finding only that a San Antonio man had engaged in unlawful conspiracy.
The verdict by a seven-member jury followed a two-week civil trial in federal court in Austin in which the defendants had testified that their activities were protected political activity under the First Amendment.
The plaintiffs — who include Wendy Davis, a former Democratic state senator, along with a Biden campaign staff member and the bus driver — also testified, saying that the rolling road protest had been frightening and intimidating.
The encounter took place on Oct. 30, 2020, the last day of early voting that year in Texas, on a stretch of interstate highway between San Antonio and Austin. In dozens of vehicles, with campaign flags waving, supporters of President Donald J. Trump had waited for the Biden-Harris campaign bus and then surrounded it for much of the 80-mile trip.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs had argued that the “Trump Train” was not protected speech but rather a violation of the federal Enforcement Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, which was passed in response to political and racial violence in the aftermath of the Civil War. The law bars groups of people from conspiring “to prevent, by force, intimidation or threat, any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote from giving his support or advocacy in a legal manner” to a candidate.
For the plaintiffs’ lawyers, just getting to trial had been a key victory, because it meant that the 1871 law could be used to respond to modern political threats and violence. The judge in the case, Robert Pitman, found in a pretrial ruling that allegations by the plaintiffs could be found by a jury to fall “within the scope of the type of political violence that Congress intended to protect when it enacted the Klan Act back in 1871.”
In the end, the jury found that only one of the defendants, Eliazar Cisneros of San Antonio, was liable for breaking that law, deciding that he had engaged in a conspiracy under the 1871 act. But the jury did not find him or any of the other participants liable for assault.
“Today’s ruling affirms the right of every individual in this country to voice their political beliefs without fear that they will be threatened or injured,” said John Paredes, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group that represented the plaintiffs along with lawyers from the Texas Civil Rights Project and the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
The jury awarded $10,000 in compensatory damages to the bus driver, Timothy Holloway, and an additional $30,000 in punitive damages against Mr. Cisneros.
A lawyer for Mr. Cisneros did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the verdict, which came after a day of deliberations.
Jerad Najvar, a lawyer for two of the other defendants, Joeylynn and Robert Mesaros, said in response to the verdict that the case had been “misleading from the beginning” and that he would be seeking to recover attorney’s fees from the plaintiffs.
Defense lawyers argued that the trial was aimed at silencing their clients, who they said were ordinary Texans seeking to express their views. Each took part in either helping to organize the gathering, driving along the highway with the bus or both.
“This was a political rally,” Jason Greaves, who represented two of the defendants, Steve and Randi Ceh, said in his opening statement. It was not “some conspiracy to block people or intimidate people,” he said.
The defendants, who included two married couples, did not all know one another before being sued together, their lawyers said. “They’re not even Facebook friends,” Erin Mersino said of her client, Dolores Park, during the trial.
Videos of the encounter were played repeatedly for the jury and formed the basis for much of the discussion of what took place. Some of the protest trucks could be seen slowing the bus down to what the plaintiffs said was around 15 miles an hour. Others pulled off the road at times and then back onto it in what an expert testifying for the plaintiffs said was dangerous behavior.
In addition to the bus, the campaign also had a volunteer who was driving along in a sport utility vehicle.
In her testimony, Ms. Davis, who ran unsuccessfully for Texas governor in 2014, narrated a video she had recorded from the front of the bus and described what it had felt like to be there with the Trump convoy all around.
“We were really afraid,” said Ms. Davis, who at the time of the encounter was a candidate for the U.S. House and was also representing the Biden campaign. The protest, she said, prompted the campaign to cancel a planned stop at a college in San Marcos and events in Austin. “We didn’t know who these people were and what they might be capable of.”
The plaintiffs said that they had dialed 911 for help and that, in some cities they passed through, police cars had responded. But in others, they were left on their own, and the trucks then became more aggressive, particularly around San Marcos.
Before the trial, the plaintiffs separately settled a lawsuit against the city of San Marcos, which did not admit wrongdoing but paid $175,000 and said its police response “did not reflect the department’s high standards.” No criminal charges were filed.
There was one collision during the encounter and it involved Mr. Cisneros. The pickup truck that he was driving collided with the S.U.V. driven by a Biden campaign volunteer as both drove behind the bus.
An expert for the plaintiffs said that while the S.U.V. could be seen on video appearing to move into the truck’s lane, the truck did not try to avoid it and instead rammed into the other vehicle. No one was injured.
In his testimony, Mr. Cisneros denied causing the collision. He said the campaign vehicle had hit him first and that his post afterward on social media bragging about “slamming” the other vehicle had been taken out of context.
The post Jury Clears All but One Defendant in ‘Trump Train’ Case Over Biden Bus in 2020 appeared first on New York Times.