By Sirkka Miller
In December 2025, the racketeering charges brought against 61 people indicted as co-conspirators in the Stop Cop City movement were dismissed as procedurally invalid. This marked a major victory for the movement and the co-defendants’ collective defense strategy. It might go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: we do not always lose these big repression cases, and it is important that we emphasize the wins just as loudly as we decry justice denied. Moreover, talking openly about people’s experiences with criminalization and working together to craft collective strategies rooted in solidarity can help us feel less afraid in the face of legal repression. Backing down is not an option, so how do we contend with the terrain we must navigate to keep fighting?
With this in mind, two members of Slingshot Collective (Sirkka and Antonio) talked with Hannah Kass: a former defendant in several prosecutions of Stop Cop City activists on RICO and arson charges.
Note: this interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Slingshot: To get us started, could you give us some background on the Stop Cop City RICO case and its outcomes?
Hannah: Yeah for sure. Over the course of the struggle to stop Cop City there were a number of arrests on different charges, starting from babypants criminal trespassing charges but then escalating to a point where people started getting felony domestic terrorism charges just from being at protests in proximity to property destruction; just for being in the forest and being part of this forest occupation, allegedly. There were other arrests that weren’t domestic terrorism charges though too. They raided the bail fund – the Atlanta Solidarity Fund – and charged them with baseless financial crimes like charity fraud and money laundering. Then, you know, they picked up people who were doing basic first amendment activities like passing out flyers naming the officers who murdered Tortuguita, and charging them with felony intimidation.
After all these separate arrests, all of us were then rounded up in this giant RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) case of 61 people, basically alleging that this movement to stop Cop City and defend the Welaunee Forest, if you’re a part of it, then you’re part of a terrorist criminal organization and conspiracy. It basically uses the fundamental tenets of how social movements work, you know: resource mobilization, social coordination, relationships, etc., against us. And using conspiracy law, specifically RICO, to criminalize being part of a protest or a social movement had such a devastating effect on the movement.
Slingshot: Could you say more on that, why do you think the RICO case had the effect it did?
Hannah: Sure. Of course, there were actions that happened after the RICO indictment. Some effective ones too: in November 2023 like 12 Ernst concrete trucks got burned and they dropped their contract right away, and they were pouring concrete for Cop City. So it definitely wasn’t a sudden like “oh man, we’re RICO’d, game over” but the RICO case sucked energy out of the movement, and it also produced fear and trauma in people. I mean, I’m still dealing with that trauma to this day, and I know a lot of other people are. And not just the emotional trauma but the way that it impacts your life to be labeled a domestic terrorist or to be in a RICO case, you know that’s basically being labeled as a terrorist organization, it’s really hard to get a job, and get housing. It’s hard to participate in society, this kind of repression is designed to produce social death for anyone who resists the expansion of a police state, essentially. Or whatever other monstrosity they’re trying to push through.
Slingshot: How do we push back against this? We would love to hear your reflections on the state of political repression in the U.S. right now more broadly, and what this means for continued resistance and movement strategy. What do we need to be thinking about as we face the escalation of domestic “lawfare” against political movements?
Hannah: Yeah, I think lawfare is a great way of putting it. I’ve been thinking a lot about lawfare with regard to these prosecutions, and also how we’ve beaten them back. So first with the question of where the case is today and where we’re going: The RICO case was dragged out for two years but it was ultimately dismissed on a technicality. Now it is on appeal, but chances are good that the appeal will also be dismissed because of the state’s ineptitude.
The thing about lawfare is that it has been generally conceptualized by legal anthropologists as coming from the top-down, which is totally legit and true, but there’s also some emergent scholarship on asymmetric lawfare and how people fight back in the courts, using the law to their advantage. I’ve been thinking a lot about this – how do we use a creative legal strategy in fighting back? We were able to win against the RICO indictment through a solidaristic, collective defense strategy, so I’d love to talk a little bit about that.
There were 61 of us indicted, so we had a big group. In these big prosecutions of movements, like we saw with the J20 case, you can use the numbers to end up winning. The J20 case, for those who don’t know, came out of a protest at Donald Trump’s first inauguration. Something like 200 people were charged with felony rioting and just like a bunch of different felonies that added up to 80 years to life in prison. So it was a really serious escalation of political prosecution against a really large group of people. But they used their numbers to end up winning by putting people who had weaker cases up for trial first and filing for speedy trial, overwhelming the system. Saying “no, fuck you, we’re not gonna take plea deals, we’re gonna go to trial and we’re gonna beat this,” and they did. We took a similar approach, like, these charges are bullshit and our legal strategy will reflect that. We will also use our numbers to the extent that we can. We had some folks who had weak cases, like some of the people mass arrested at the music festival, these folks put themselves on the line to go to trial first and demand a speedy trial. The idea being to exhaust the prosecution’s resources, hopefully drawing the energy away from the co-defendants who are more vulnerable in terms of their cases and legal needs.
In doing that, and then pummeling them with motions to dismiss, and taking offensive action… just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks can be super effective, and it has been. The tactic that won with RICO was a motion to quash the indictment because they didn’t get a letter from the governor like they were supposed to, and that won. Like I said, they did appeal it, but now they’re struggling to actually complete the basic steps that it takes to appeal the dismissal, because it’s a giant 61-person case and they kept piling like terabytes and terabytes of discovery on the defendants and defense teams — which is a strategy prosecutors use to make it hard for you to defend yourself because there’s just so much information, but now that’s backfired.
Slingshot: This is so cool to hear, beating them at their own game.
Hannah: I want to elaborate on the no plea deal thing. It’s not just not taking plea deals because the charges are stupid, right, it’s also the fact that the system relies on plea deals to continue to function. I think the latest statistic is like 97% of criminal cases are resolved through plea deals, because the state doesn’t have the resources to take everyone to trial and for us to have our right to due process. So part of that strategy is exploiting that weakness by forcing them to take us all to trial. You want to indict 61 people? Okay, fuck you, then prove your case or drop it.
We did a similar thing on a smaller scale in my second prosecution, which was in April 2026, after the RICO indictment got dismissed on a technicality. Three of us who were arrested in May 2022 were charged with arson way after the fact – only three weeks before the charges would have expired under the Statute of Limitations. I took the strategy of filing for speedy trial, first of all, which meant that I would have to be tried within six weeks. By doing that I took the case into a pre-trial hearing where the defense teams for the three of us could then pummel the prosecution with our motions to dismiss.
The prosecution actually helped us win this one, hilariously, because they basically admitted in open court that because the RICO got dismissed they decided to go back to the cases in the RICO to individually prosecute each of the 61 and “take one bite of the elephant at a time,” that’s literally what they said. Our argument was that this is a due process violation. One, because you waited four years to actually indict this case, and that’s way too long and in violation of our constitutional right to a speedy trial. And two, you are not supposed to use that delay in a way that gives you a tactical advantage, which they had just admitted on the court record. My lawyer was like “your honor, the state just told you exactly why we should have this case dismissed for due process violation,” and then the judge was like “let me go to my chambers,” and then came out and was like “I’m dismissing this case.”
Slingshot: Wow. Do you have any big picture takeaways you want to share?
Hannah: My takeaway is that — if you feel like you have strong facts, and believe in your case, and that what they’re doing to you is bullshit — then this is the time to be brave, lose your fear and take bold and aggressive legal actions. These repression cases that are happening right now are really fucked up and scary, but also the prosecution can be weak and we can win. At the same time, there’s no shame in taking a non-cooperating plea deal if you find that to be best and/or strategic for yourself, your co-defendants, your comrades and the movement you’re a part of. Emphasis on the non-cooperation. If you become a snitch, it won’t help you, but your solidarity with us earns our solidarity with you. Solidarity must be reciprocal in that way.
Slingshot: Yes, through solidarity with your co-defendants and solidarity with your movement, absolutely. Do you have any thoughts on how we can strengthen our movements to prepare for these repressive situations before they happen?
Hannah: Building up anti-repression organizing and infrastructure is super important. I’ve been having a lot of conversations about how there’s a hierarchy or divide between the frontline and non-front line activism. But so much of frontline activism depends on people who are not on the frontline. The people who are putting out the press releases, bailing people out, tracking people in the jail system, picking those people up from jail, packing the courts, taking care of people’s pets, I could go on and on about all of the different roles beyond the frontline… there needs to not be a hierarchy between those roles. They’re all essential.
I think we have this thing in the anarchist milieu where there’s a valorization of street fighting or insurrectionary actions which are actively confrontational. There’s a reason for that, of course, because historically-speaking we know that we need disruptive action somewhere along the line. But we know that the actions themselves aren’t the whole movement, we need a wider base of support and transformation.
The question of how we value all of those things, and how people practice solidarity, is key. I think one thing that has gotten better over the last 5 years is this understanding of diversity of tactics, this refusal to condemn people. Like in the movement to stop Cop City there were so many people who did not destroy property, but largely as a movement we don’t talk shit about those who did, and we will support them if they get prosecuted.
Slingshot: Yes, that refusal to denounce each other’s tactics and to embrace diversity in how we fight and how we can plug in is such a big part of this. As we reach the end of the conversation, we wanted to give you some space to share about the new initiative you’re working on.
Hannah: Oh, yes. So a legal worker friend and I are developing this project, called the Repression Resilience Think Tank and Archive. It’s a research and political education initiative that’s trying to answer some of the questions that y’all are asking. Questions like how do we actually equip our movements to survive and thrive and remain resilient in the face of pretty unprecedented state repression? What are the infrastructures and relationships that we need to build? What has been helpful in the past? What hasn’t? How are people being cared for in the aftermath, and how can aftercare be improved? We’ll be conducting interviews, oral histories, and document analyses of already existing anti-repression resources and making them publicly accessible. We want to talk to political defendants, prisoners, support committees, movement lawyers, legal workers, court supporters… all kinds of actors within this broader movement defense and anti-repression ecosystem, and create a digital archive that stores the lessons that we learn from this research. We hope to create political education materials that are helpful to movements, like zines, videos, and webinars.
Slingshot: That’s great. Collecting and sharing this information openly and learning from previous situations could help people feel empowered to take bold, collaborative, and strategic action in their legal cases, like you were talking about.
Hannah: Oftentimes in repression cases we’re operating in crisis mode or reactively, out of necessity. I think these resources could help armor us, so we can create more room for reflection and have more thoughtful responses. That’s really the core of the project.
Slingshot: Beautiful, are there any final thoughts you would like to share with Slingshot readers?
Hannah: Love and rage!
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Hannah Kass is a Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies at Kenyon College. Her scholarship, organizing, and teaching focuses on guiding the next generation through the hard work of grappling with the repression, resistance, and resilience of liberation struggles in the US.