弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔——周二，陪审团下令17名白人民族主义领导人和组织支付超过2600万美元的损失，原因是2017年夏洛茨维尔致命的“联合右翼”集会期间爆发了暴力事件。

经过近一个月的民事审判，美国地方法院的陪审团在两项关键索赔上陷入僵局，但发现白人民族主义者对另外四项索赔负有责任。这四项索赔是由九人提起的诉讼，他们在两天的示威中遭受了身体或精神伤害。

律师罗伯塔·卡普兰说，原告的律师计划重新提起诉讼，以便新的陪审团能够对这两项陷入僵局的诉讼做出裁决。她称其他罪名的赔偿金额“令人大开眼界”。

“这发出了一个响亮的信息，”卡普兰说。

这一判决虽然褒贬不一，但却是对白人民族主义运动的一种谴责，尤其是对在一场联邦诉讼中被指控在精心策划的阴谋中策划针对非裔美国人、犹太人和其他人的暴力的二十几个个人和组织。

白人民族主义领袖理查德·斯潘塞发誓要上诉，称“判决的整个理论存在根本缺陷。”

他说，原告的律师在审判前明确表示，他们想利用这个案子让他和其他被告破产。

“这是通过诉讼的方式进行的激进主义，这绝对令人愤慨，”他说。“我现在做得很好，因为我心里已经接受了可能发生的最坏情况。我当然有希望，但我并不感到非常惊讶或沮丧。”

陪审团未能就两项关键主张达成一致裁决，这两项主张基于内战后通过的一项长达150年的联邦法律，该法律旨在保护获得自由的奴隶免受暴力侵害，并保护他们的公民权利。《三k党法》载有一项很少使用的条款，允许公民个人就侵犯公民权利的行为起诉其他公民。

根据这些指控，原告要求陪审团认定被告参与了一项出于种族动机的暴力阴谋，他们知道这一阴谋，但未能阻止其实施。陪审员不能同意这些说法。

陪审团确实根据弗吉尼亚州的一项法律共谋索赔认定被告负有责任，并根据该索赔判给原告1100万美元的损害赔偿。陪审员还认定集会的五名主要组织者负有责任，声称他们对两名原告实施了出于种族、宗教或族裔仇恨的恐吓、骚扰或暴力。陪审团判给原告150万美元的赔偿金。

最后两项指控是针对小詹姆斯·亚历克斯·菲尔德的，他是一名公开的希特勒崇拜者，故意驾驶他的汽车撞向一群反对者，杀死了32岁的希瑟·海耶，打伤了19人。陪审团裁定，因谋杀和仇恨犯罪而在监狱服刑的菲尔兹应对袭击或殴打索赔负责，并判给六名原告略低于680万美元的赔偿金。陪审团判给这些原告近670万美元，理由是菲尔德故意给他们造成精神痛苦。

海尔的母亲苏珊·布罗说，判决“发出了一个非常明确的信息，即仇恨言论付诸行动会产生后果。”

“被告被判有罪，他们自己的话表明几个月的计划进入了集会。这不是一个自发的事件，”Bro说，他不是诉讼的原告。

2017年8月11日和12日，数百名白人民族主义者来到夏洛茨维尔参加联合右翼集会，表面上是为了抗议该市拆除邦联将军罗伯特·李雕像的计划。在弗吉尼亚大学校园的游行中，白人民族主义者高呼“犹太人不会取代我们”，包围了反对者，并向他们投掷tiki火把。

时任总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)未能立即谴责白人民族主义者，称“双方都有非常优秀的人”，引发了一场政治风暴

这场由美国诚信第一组织(Integrity First for America)资助的诉讼指控该国一些最知名的白人民族主义者策划了暴力事件，其中包括集会的主要组织者杰森·凯斯勒(Jason Kessler);斯潘塞创造了“alt-right”一词来描述一群松散的白人民族主义者、新纳粹分子和其他人;克里斯托弗·坎特威尔是一名白人至上主义者，他因在逮捕令发出时发布了一段令人流泪的视频而被称为“哭泣的纳粹”，他因对反示威者使用胡椒喷雾而被指控袭击他人。

被告马修·海姆巴赫(Matthew Heimbach)、马修·帕洛特(Matthew Parrott)和极右翼传统主义工人党的律师约书亚·史密斯(Joshua Smith)表示，根据美国最高法院的先例，他将要求法院减少对其客户的惩罚性赔偿裁决，该先例限制了惩罚性赔偿可以比补偿性赔偿大多少。史密斯将这一判决描述为他的当事人的“大胜利”，因为陪审团判给的赔偿金额相对适中。

审判的特点是被菲尔兹的车撞了的人或目睹袭击的人以及被殴打或遭受种族主义嘲弄的原告的情感证词。

梅丽莎·布莱尔(Melissa Blair)在菲尔兹(Fields)的汽车撞向人群时被推下了路，她描述了看到未婚夫在人行道上流血，后来得知她的朋友海耶(Heyer)被杀的恐惧。

“我很困惑。我很害怕。我担心所有在场的人。这是一个彻头彻尾的恐怖场面。到处都是血。我很害怕，”布莱尔说，她在作证时泪流满面。

在他们的证词中，一些被告使用了种族绰号，并公然表示支持白人至上。他们还指责对方和反法西斯政治运动antifa造成了那个周末爆发的暴力事件。

在对陪审团的最后辩论中，被告及其律师试图与菲尔德保持距离，并表示原告没有证明他们在集会上合谋实施暴力。

审判前，诺曼·穆恩法官对拒绝回应诉讼的另外七名被告做出了缺席判决。法院将判决对那些被告的损害赔偿。

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美联社记者迈克·昆泽尔曼从马里兰州大学公园发来稿件。美联社记者莎拉·兰金从里士满发来稿件。

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这个故事已经被更正，显示损失总额超过2600万美元。

Jury awards $26M in damages for Unite the Right violence

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- A jury ordered 17 white nationalist leaders and organizations to pay more than $26 million in damages Tuesday over the violence that erupted during the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.

After a nearly monthlong civil trial, the jury in U.S. District Court deadlocked on two key claims but found the white nationalists liable on four other claims in the lawsuit filed by nine people who suffered physical or emotional injuries during the two days of demonstrations.

Attorney Roberta Kaplan said the plaintiffs' lawyers plan to refile the suit so a new jury can decide the two deadlocked claims. She called the amount of damages awarded from the other counts “eye opening.”

"That sends a loud message,” Kaplan said.

The verdict, though mixed, is a rebuke to the white nationalist movement, particularly for the two dozen individuals and organizations accused in a federal lawsuit of orchestrating violence against African Americans, Jews and others in a meticulously planned conspiracy.

White nationalist leader Richard Spencer vowed to appeal, saying the “entire theory of that verdict is fundamentally flawed.”

He said plaintiffs’ attorneys made it clear before the trial that they wanted to use the case to bankrupt him and other defendants.

“It was activism by means of lawsuits, and that is absolutely outrageous,” he said. “I’m doing fine right now because I had kind of accepted in my heart the worst that could happen. I had hope, of course, but I’m not terribly surprised or crestfallen.”

Jurors were unable to reach unanimous verdicts on two pivotal claims based on a 150-year-old federal law passed after the Civil War to shield freed slaves from violence and protect their civil rights. The Ku Klux Klan Act contains a rarely used provision that allows private citizens to sue other citizens for civil rights violations.

Under those claims, the plaintiffs asked the jury to find that the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence and that they knew about the conspiracy but failed to stop it from being carried out. Jurors could not agree on those claims.

The jury did find the defendants liable under a Virginia state law conspiracy claim and awarded $11 million in damages to the plaintiffs under that claim. Jurors also found five of the main organizers of the rally liable under a claim that alleged they subjected two of the plaintiffs to intimidation, harassment or violence that was motivated by racial, religious or ethnic animosity. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $1.5 million in damages on that claim.

The final two claims were made against James Alex Fields Jr., an avowed Hitler admirer who intentionally drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. The jury found Fields, who is serving life in prison for murder and hate crimes, liable on an assault or battery claim and awarded six plaintiffs just under $6.8 million in damages. The jury awarded the same plaintiffs nearly $6.7 million on a claim that Fields intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them.

Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, said the verdict “sends a very clear message that hate speech put into action has consequences.”

“The defendants were convicted with their own words that showed months of planning went into the rally. This was not a spontaneous event," said Bro, who was not a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Hundreds of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally on Aug. 11 and 12, 2017, ostensibly to protest city plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. During a march on the University of Virginia campus, white nationalists chanted “Jews will not replace us,” surrounded counterprotesters and threw tiki torches at them.

Then-President Donald Trump touched off a political firestorm when he failed to immediately denounce the white nationalists, saying there were “ very fine people on both sides. ”

The lawsuit funded by Integrity First for America, a nonprofit civil rights organization formed in response to the violence in Charlottesville, accused some of the country’s most well-known white nationalists of plotting the violence, including Jason Kessler, the rally’s main organizer; Spencer, who coined the term “alt-right” to describe a loosely connected band of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and others; and Christopher Cantwell, a white supremacist who became known as the “crying Nazi” for posting a tearful video when a warrant was issued for his arrest on assault charges for using pepper spray against counterdemonstrators.

Joshua Smith, an attorney for defendants Matthew Heimbach, Matthew Parrott and the far-right Traditionalist Worker Party, said he will ask the court to reduce the punitive damages awards against his clients under U.S. Supreme Court precedent that places limitations on how much larger punitive damages can be than compensatory damages. Smith described the verdict as a “big win” for his clients due to the relatively modest amount of compensatory damages awarded by the jury.

The trial featured emotional testimony from people struck by Fields’ car or who witnessed the attacks as well as plaintiffs who were beaten or subjected to racist taunts.

Melissa Blair, who was pushed out of the way as Fields’ car slammed into the crowd, described the horror of seeing her fiancé bleeding on the sidewalk and later learning that her friend Heyer had been killed.

“I was confused. I was scared. I was worried about all the people that were there. It was a complete terror scene. It was blood everywhere. I was terrified,” said Blair, who became tearful during her testimony.

During their testimony, some of the defendants used racial epithets and defiantly expressed their support for white supremacy. They also blamed one another and the anti-fascist political movement known as antifa for the violence that erupted that weekend.

In closing arguments to the jury, the defendants and their lawyers tried to distance themselves from Fields and said the plaintiffs had not proved that they conspired to commit violence at the rally.

Before the trial, Judge Norman Moon issued default judgments against another seven defendants who refused to respond to the lawsuit. The court will decide damages against those defendants.

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AP reporter Mike Kunzelman contributed from College Park, Maryland. AP reporter Sarah Rankin contributed from Richmond.

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This story has been corrected to show that the damages total more than $26 million.