Inside ICE Protest Trials in Los Angeles

This is John Quinn. This is Law Disrupted. And as the world knows, there have been protests

across the United States about the actions of the immigration and custom service, ICE,

in many cities, including in Los Angeles. And many of these protests have resulted in

federal criminal charges being brought against protesters. Some 70 cases, criminal cases

have been brought against protesters in Los Angeles alone. And today we're going to

be talking to two public defenders from the Los Angeles Public Defenders Office. They

have tried to verdict six cases in a row with acquittals in every case, which is extremely

unusual. We're speaking with Rebecca Able, who's a supervisor in the federal public

defenders office in Los Angeles, as well as Kyra Nickel, who's a public defender in

that office. And first, can you give us some kind of idea of the scope of the kinds of

criminal prosecutions, the number of criminal prosecutions there being brought as a result

against people involved in protesting actions by ICE and other enforcement authorities?

Sure, this is Rebecca Able. There have been over 70 prosecutions against people involved

in or related to the protests of the current administration's immigration policies. And

our office represents the vast majority of those.

I mean, is this the number of prosecutions brought, or is this unusual in your experience

or not unusual? I mean, how would you characterize this?

I've been with the office for eight years. And I would, I have never seen this number

or type of charge be brought, the vast majority of these defendants are charged with assault

on a federal officer. And historically, we've seen some of those charges, but year to

year, a relatively small number and nowhere near in the 70s.

I mean, is it unusual that the government would actually bring these charges and then bring

the cases to trial? I mean, you've tried to number these cases now.

Certainly, it's unusual that this number would go to trial. I think that the nature and

content of the cases and the evidence offered is not comparable to ones that we've seen

historically. And so there's more opportunity for these cases to be tried.

I mean, can you generalize about what a typical fact pattern is in these cases, recognizing

that each case is different, but then can you generalize about what happened, what the

underlying facts are?

As you said, it's hard to generalize, but, but sort of big picture. These cases arise

often in the context of a protest where citizens have gathered to speak out against immigration

policies and federal agents have responded to those protests and then an interaction occurs

between a protestor or journalist present at that event and one of the officers. And as

a result of that interaction, the protestor or journalist is then charged with a crime most

often assault on a federal officer.

And are these cases, are they typically bargained out? I know in the criminal world generally,

very, very few cases go to trial. Usually, there's an offer of a plea and a plea is accepted,

or the case is dismissed at some point. What's happening with these cases?

Some have gotten dismissed, either by the government or by the court. Some have pled guilty and

some have gone to trial. I would speaking generally, I would say that a greater number appear to

either be going to trial or getting dismissed than an average group of 70 prosecutions that we see

in this district. Much higher numbers are going to trial and obtaining dismissals.

And you say some of those dismissals are just made by the court and the court finds that

there isn't grounds to take a case to trial or what? There's been a variety of reasons for dismissals.

So I couldn't generalize there, but there have been a lot of grounds for defense counsel to

move for dismissal and courts have found them to be persuasive. And then, of course,

there's also been dismissals by the government as well, where they're requesting the dismissal

themselves. In general, what is the type of conduct that the government alleges that the

individuals charged, engaged in? What are the kinds of things that the government says that these

defendants did? I think that's very hard to generalize. I can speak about our case, certainly,

and what they alleged that our client, Isaiah S. Lopez did, and I've had another one,

but they're a touching of some kind. You know, sometimes minor touching, the ones that I have

seen go to trial to date have been a minor touching of some kind. So in other words, the government

alleged that a federal officer was doing their duty and a protestor came in contact with them

in some fashion, essentially. Yes. And criminal charges resulted. Yes.

And how many of these cases has your office taken to the trial? So far, in six, and we expect

several more in the coming months. Does the government seem to have taken a more aggressive stance

in terms of not entering into plea bargains and taking these cases to trial? Part to say.

Yeah, I can't say. Yeah, I can't say. I think opt into plea negotiations are dependent, of course,

on what is offered, but also on whether our clients accept them. And so I think that in these cases,

often there isn't a plea agreement that would be available or possible in some of these cases.

Before we start this podcast, you told me that it was important to make clear that you were not

speaking for the office or you were just giving your own personal insights into what happened in

the cases that you were involved with. Yes. I am not speaking on behalf of the federal public

defenders office. And neither is my colleague. I think we are representing our own views

and an experience based on what we've seen. And Los Angeles Times article that I saw that

led me to want to talk to you, it said that you had tried six of these cases and obtained the

quittles in all six. That's right. And that's in the criminal and the criminal defense world,

that's pretty unusual. I think something like one or two percent of all criminal prosecutions

nationally end up in the quittles or something like that. I can't speak to the national numbers,

but certainly in my personal experience, there's many cases that don't go to trial at all.

And of the few that do, we don't always obtain full-not guilty verdicts. Our office has a tremendous

record of taking good cases to trial and getting acquittles. Of those six, I personally participated in

two. And I think that in those two cases, getting an acquittal was very welcome.

I mean, it is kind of unusual in your experience to have six of quittles in a row in criminal cases.

Certainly, when they're all of the same type. I've never had, we've not had six cases that

in my time at the office of very similar fact patterns ever go to trial like this. Usually our

cases are quite diverse and raise different sets of issues and charge very different offenses.

These six were remarkably similar in the nature and type of charge and the conduct that was

alleged. And so to achieve a quittal in six relatively similar cases is extremely unusual. I

have not seen that before. But so these cases obviously, as they are in our country, we're

tried to juries. The juries heard all the evidence and returned to quittles six times in a row

against the government. In the cases that you handled. Yes.

Let's look to put some flesh on the bones here. Let's talk about one case that was highlighted in

the press, involved your client, Isaiah Lopez, who I guess was the sixth quittal that you achieved

after trial. And as I understand it, Kyra, you were involved with Rebecca in this trial?

Yes. So I was involved in this case. Typically, one attorney appears at that initial appearance

of the client and when it seems like a case is going towards trial, then we will add a second

attorney to assist with the trial and to help build up the defense, question witnesses,

locate evidence and present the evidence that trial. So Rebecca asked me to join the case and I was

happy to tag on and work on this case to represent Mr. Lopez.

And what was it that the government alleged that Mr. Lopez had done?

In this case, Mr. Lopez was charged with a one-count felony indictment of assault on a

federal officer. Charging that of felony, that's not, I assume that's not every day in cases like

this, where all these cases that you tried felony charges? It's a mix, but the other one I tried

was ultimately charged as a misdemeanor. Okay. And what was the felonious conduct that the

government alleged that Mr. Lopez had engaged in? And Mr. Lopez was accused of two separate

touchings. The first being making contact with the federal officer with his camera that he was

holding in his hands. And then the second with using his left hand to push the federal officer.

Let's let's at the stage here. Where did this take place? What was going on? Were there,

were there a lot of people? Was this a protest? A lot of people confronting ice officers?

Or what was the setting here? So this occurred behind the Metropolitan Detention Center,

which is a federal bureau of presents facility in downtown LA. It houses and detains our clients,

primarily both those charged with criminal offenses and immigrants brought in by ice accused

being in the country illegally. So because it is a place where immigrants are detained,

it is also a place of protest for those protesting those policies and has been a place of protest

since June, approximately, of 2025. And on that evening on August 8, 2025, there was a protest

that had started at a Home Depot, a couple of blocks down the road, to protest immigrants being

detained at that Home Depot. And that was marching from that Home Depot to the Metropolitan

Detention Center in downtown LA. And so Mr. Lopez was charged with, I guess, coming in contact

with a federal officer with his camera and then pushing an officer with his hand. Is that essentially

what the charge was? Yes, he's a photographer, Mr. Lopez. He originally started at that Home Depot.

I described photographing the protesters and their signage and their speeches, their gathering.

And then he drove from the Home Depot to the Metropolitan Detention Center to capture the

protest and the march arriving. So when he arrived at the MDC, which is the Metropolitan Detention

Center, he was there with a couple dozen protesters gathered along Elameda Street, which is a main

thoroughfare behind the MDC. And he was photographing art and signs on the wall, people who were gathered.

And then he saw a small group gathered in a plaza at the back of the MDC along the sidewalk.

He crosses the street to photograph the officers who had exited the building and the incident

was alleged to have occurred while he was photographing those officers. So how long was the trial?

The trial was about a week long from start to finish. And who were the witnesses? Who testified?

I believe there were seven witnesses in total. The government presented two witnesses in the

defense ended up presenting five witnesses. And I assume the government's witnesses were other

government officials who were on the scene who testified. They saw him come in contact with

the officer with his camera and his left hand basically two government witnesses corroborating that.

Yes. So the two government witnesses, the first was the the complaint officer named in the

indictment who was testified that he was physically contacted by Mr. Lopez. The second was his

supervising officer at the scene. For the defense, we had five witnesses that we presented

to them were journalists on the scene in two of them were protesters there that night and the

fifth one was the client. And the testimony of the defense witnesses was what basically that

just didn't happen or or what did they what did they testify to?

The two journalist witnesses testified as to the videos that they recorded. One of them was a

credentialed journalist who had recorded part of the incident. The other was an independent

journalist who captured the entire incident unobstructed between the officer named in the indictment

and Mr. Lopez and that showed evidence inconsistent with the testimony from that officer on

direct. As far as for the other two protesters who testified, they were testified as to their

experiences. So the two protesters that testified were both witnesses to the incident. One was

standing just a few feet from where it occurred and was a direct witness to the incident

and testified contrary to what the complaining witness testified to. And so they were all

Percipient witnesses, some of whom recorded video and some of whom were just Percipient witnesses

and then of course a client who testified as to his experience. So the jury had the benefit of

two video, two videos that showed the incident. Is that right? Yeah, the government presented two

videos. They presented some surveillance footage from the federal building that was quite far away

and had no audio and then they presented a YouTube video that they had found that captured the

incident sort of from an angle and from quite a distance and so it was pretty obscured. And that

was the only video evidence that the government presented. The defense team and highlighting in

particular the amazing work of our investigator went out and found other witnesses, protesters

and journalists who had captured the incident from other angles and there were about two dozen

people there and we spoke to as many as we could find and they we were able to cap to get ourselves

five other videos that captured the incident from other angles, other portions of the incident

that were not captured by any of the government videos and in particular one of the independent

journalists that Kyra mentioned captured the incident completely unobstructed and showed

from quite a close angle exactly the interaction between our client Mr. Lopez and the complaining

witness and that video really demonstrated many inconsistencies between what he had testified to

in his direct examination and what actually occurred. So did the video

showed that he actually had not made contact with the officer with his camera or his hand or

or what was was it pretty clear? So the charge was the way the government presented the case was

two alleged touching. One was as our client Mr. Lopez was photographing other officers. The

complaining witness came up to him from off to the side at a fast pace and stood right in front

of him and he alleged that in that moment our client had hit him the complaining witness in his

nose with the camera and the video really showed that to the extent there was any contact between

the lens of his camera and the complaining witnesses knows that the contact was entirely unintentional

and if it occurred at all it occurred because the officer literally just walked into him

and and the video really demonstrated that that there was there was no movement by Mr. Lopez that

would have caused the contact and then the the second alleged interaction occurred after that and

I want to break this down a little bit. So after the alleged nose touching our client immediately

begins backing up at quite a pace toward the street toward the sidewalk and the officer encroaches

on him moves quite quickly toward him raises up his arm starts yelling get that camera out of my face

and as he's yelling that the officer uses his right hand and slept Mr. Lopez his and his camera

out of his hands that interaction was not described accurately by the officer underact and in fact

quite glossed over and the video really demonstrated that the slap occurred and the effect that that

slap had on Mr. Lopez. Following that slap as Mr. Lopez continues to back up he raises his left arm

and pushes pushes back on the officer's Keblar vest to give himself some space to protect himself

and to prevent further attack by the officer and so the the video also clearly showed that interaction

and demonstrated that the second contact was insulted. I assume you were able to get this video

as a result of work done by your investigators. Yes yes and the witnesses who testified for the

defense which again were journalists and protesters were were fully available to the government.

If the government wanted to subpoena the witnesses who were present and obtain their videos they

could have they did not do that and we did not want to go to trial with only a fraction of the truth

when we knew and they knew that there was video evidence available that that could be collected

and so we took the necessary steps to collect it. I mean did the government see I don't I'm not

familiar with the criminal you know pretrial disclosure process. I know there's such a thing as

Brady and if the government has exculpatory information they have to turn it over to the defense.

I assume there isn't a parallel rule on the defense side that if you have information that shows

the witness is not guilty you're not obligated to disclose that to the government.

In criminal cases the defense has much more limited disclosure obligations that arise only

in certain circumstances. In this case in particular we did not disclose and did not need to disclose

the video evidence that we had until trial. So the first time the government saw those videos that

showed what you described was at trial in the courtroom is that true?

Including upon Kyra's masterful cross-examination of the complaining witness. Yes.

Kyra tell us about that cross-examination of the complaining witness.

Yes so the cross-examination was really focused on highlighting the inconsistencies and his

testimony compared to the direct video evidence that we were able to locate. On direct examination

he had testified to a couple things that were quite inconsistent with the video

such as he had testified that he had pushed Mr. Lopez to create distance when the video very

clearly showed him slapping the camera down and not trying to create any distance.

He also was shown in the video the officer quickly advancing and forcing Mr. Lopez to take

steps backwards so that was also inconsistent with his direct testimony that he was trying to create

distance between himself and Mr. Lopez. Another part of his testimony he had stated that

he saw Mr. Lopez positioning his camera within millimeters of other officer spaces.

From the video it was very clear that it was nowhere near millimeters it was in fact

at least a foot or two away from other officer spaces so that was also inconsistent with his

direct testimony. He also testified that the client Mr. Lopez had said the words fuck you

prior to Mr. Lopez raising his left arm to create distance between himself and the officer but

on the video that was not captured at all or substituted from any of the angles that captured

the incident. It was nice to have video evidence that we sometimes don't have that trial to

highlight the inconsistencies in the witness's testimony and its direct proof rather than

it's just direct proof to show that this person was perhaps not giving the full account or

may have misremembered the event. So you were able to cross examine the complaining witness

and illicit testimony which you knew when you heard it was going to be inconsistent with the video

that you were going to play in defense. That's right, yes. That's an enviable position to be in.

Yes, yeah. It's something that was definitely nice to have when we were listening to him

indirectly to QOV what we were going to question for a cross examination. How long was the jury out?

About it's hard to say just because it wasn't consistent hours but I think it was about five or six

hours carers that sound right to you. I believe so yes, yeah, around five or five hours or so.

Did you feel pretty confident at the close of the evidence that you would get an acquittal here

or you just never know? Our client testified and he had testified to all of the facts we just

said but in particular his feelings and his reaction to the circuit, the situation and his belief

that he needed to act in self-defense. During deliberations the jury asked for a readback of his

testimony and particularly the portion of his testimony where he had stated that he was

quote scared and confused in those few seconds. And so when they asked for that readback we were

hopeful because they had listened carefully. They had known that he had said those words and

that they were focused on them. And so we had hoped that they had reached the self-defense

question which of course was key to our defense. We never have any belief ahead of time that we're

going to win or lose. We kind of go in as an open slate so that we don't pre-judge any case or

any jury federal juries in particular are very good at remaining stone-based. So we rarely know

how they're going to go but that jury question gave us some hope. So just to wrap up the discussion

of this trial Tyra what will you remember most about this trial and this whole experience of this

Mr. Lopez's case? I think a big takeaway from this trial and I think the supplies even just to

this work generally is just the the large amount of camaraderie we have particularly in this office

when we go to trial but then also I think just with having these back-to-back trials of a particular

type of case go again and again having the support of our wonderful support staff and our other

trial attorneys in the office it's something that I really value and has given me such appreciation

that do this work with all my colleagues that I work with who are incredibly talented who I

learned from each and every day and it wouldn't have been possible if not for all of our support

staff and friends. In these 70 criminal prosecutions arising out of these protests and other events

in Los Angeles these 70 criminal cases that government has brought. Have they obtained any

convictions? I don't think we can speak that I just don't know I honestly don't know. There are

many that are not represented there are some I should say that are not represented by our office

and so and I don't know the answer to that but I'm not aware of it. Yeah you're not aware of any

and in the cases that your office the federal public defenders in Los Angeles has defended

there haven't been any convictions. That's pretty amazing and very very rare. So I want to congratulate

you both on your defensive Mr. Lopez and the important work that the office of the

office of federal public defenders is doing and then Mr. Lopez's case in particular. This is John

Quinn and this has been Law Disrupted. Thank you for listening to Law Disrupted with me John Quinn.

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