Federal jury convicts Spokane ICE protesters as questions remain about local charges

By Tim Clouser
The Center Square

The federal verdict is in, but the local fallout from Spokane’s June 2025 protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement is still playing out, with another trial set for August 10.

A jury panel convicted Justice Forral, Jac Archer and Bajun Mavalwallla II on Thursday of conspiracy to impede or injure federal agents, nearly a year after protests at an ICE facility led to dozens of arrests.

The three defendants were among nine protesters indicted by the Trump administration a month after the protest last year. The other six people have already pleaded guilty in exchange for deals that could reduce their felony charges to lesser misdemeanors if they comply with certain court-ordered conditions.

Chaos ensued last June after hundreds of people gathered around an ICE facility in response to a call to action from former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart, who later accepted the plea deal.

Stuckart had posted on Facebook, calling on people to sit in front of a transfer van heading to Tacoma with an immigrant, who was released after a judge ruled on January 29 that he was illegally detained.

The prosecution said the protesters deflated the van’s tires and prevented federal agents from leaving.

While the city has dismissed all misdemeanor charges against dozens of other protesters, Forral heads to trial this August in Spokane County Superior Court on eight felony counts of unlawful imprisonment.

The county trial has been delayed a few times, most recently in April, because of Forral’s federal case.

According to the Spokane County Superior Court dashboard, Forral also has a July 20 status hearing.

Last August, City Prosecutor Justin Bingham said he had hundreds of hours of body-camera footage to review and dismissed the misdemeanors to avoid a judge throwing them out for insufficient evidence.

He told The Center Square at the time that his office is understaffed and under-resourced, and argued that he could refile charges within the two-year statute of limitations if the city provided more funding.

Bingham and Spokane County Prosecutor Preston McCollum did not immediately respond to voicemails from The Center Square on Thursday about Forral’s upcoming trial and the city’s progress on its cases.

This week’s verdicts convicted the three remaining federal defendants, but the case isn’t over quite yet.

A federal judge will consider motions from the defense in July that seek to dismiss the case altogether.

If the verdicts stands, the defendants could face six years in prison when sentenced at a future date.