How Conspiracy Law Threatens Social Movements

Social movements are essential for a healthy, robust democracy. They bring issues into focus, mobilize people, and inform the citizenry. But, as Litigation Fellow Steffen Seitz argues in his forthcoming article in the Michigan Law Review, “Conspiracy and Social Movements,” prosecutors are increasingly using conspiracy law to target and suppress social movements—threatening not just the movements themselves but also our democracy. As Seitz shows, the problem lies within the structure of conspiracy law itself. Conspiracy generally requires two or more individuals to agree to commit a crime. But in practice, this definition proves remarkably loose. All that is really required to prove a conspiracy is coordinated action and an opportunity for an agreement to have been reached. Individuals need not be aware of the full scope of the agreement—or even all members involved—and circumstantial evidence is enough to prove every element of the crime. Seitz argues that this loose definition is especially damaging to social movements. 

“This paper grows directly out of my work as a fellow for the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project at DU. I have seen firsthand how prosecutors weaponize conspiracy law against activists, using their political speech and associations as evidence of criminality. I’m honored to be part of a team fighting this threat to social movements, working with students to challenge the excesses and vagaries of conspiracy law,” says Seitz.

Like their predecessors, today’s movements fundamentally depend on strong social ties between activists. These connections motivate people to engage in highly communicative actions like nonviolent direct action and enable ideas to spread. But unlike in past movements, contemporary activists have access to social media, allowing them to generate an abundance of speech and mobilize quickly without the same degree of methodical organizing that was necessary in the past. The result is movements that can rapidly emerge onto the national stage but are ultimately more fragile and vulnerable to state repression. When conspiracy law is wielded against these movements, it can prove lethal. Conspiracy targets precisely what makes social movements work: the relationships between activists and their public expression. Prosecutors can use evidence of coordination and political speech to charge and convict activists. As Seitz shows, this is already happening. For example, in California, the organizer of a mass animal rights demonstration was convicted in a trial loaded with political speech. And in Atlanta, Georgia, dozens of activists face conspiracy charges for organizing against a police training facility. The article proposes one solution: abolish conspiracy for social movements by removing certain public, expressive, and nonviolent offenses—like trespass and unlawful assembly—from the scope of conspiracy. This would better protect movements without sacrificing public order and safety. 

Seitz indicates that “the primary contribution of this paper is identifying conspiracy law as an increasingly dangerous weapon being deployed against social movements. By targeting the very relationships and public expression that make movements effective, conspiracy prosecutions pose a unique threat to collective political action. I hope this work encourages lawyers, policymakers, and the public to safeguard our civic tradition of public dissent from this particularly dangerous form of legal suppression.”

Related Reading

• Tadhg Larabee and Eva Rosenfeld’s article in Dissent, “The Criminalization of Solidarity: The Stop Cop City Prosecutions,” discusses the history of conspiracy laws being used against political causes, with a special focus on the current prosecution of the “Stop Cop City” movement in Atlanta, Georgia. The Stop Cop City prosecution is one of the recurring examples in Seitz’s article.
• Adam Federman’s article in In These Times, “The War on Protest Is Here,” similarly traces the history of conspiracy prosecutions of left-wing causes, including anti-pipeline protests, pro-Palestine protests, and the Stop Cop City movement. Seitz mentions each of these conspiracy prosecutions in his article.
• Marina Bolotnikova’s article in Vox, “You’re More Likely to Go to Prison for Exposing Animal Cruelty than for Committing It,” discusses the conspiracy trial and conviction of animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung. The Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, of which Seitz is a fellow, represents Hsiung in his appeal of the convictions, and Seitz refers to the case several times in the article.