Far-right rally suspect goes on trial seven years after deadly protests praised by Trump

Following the protest President Trump defended the group saying they included ‘some very fine people’

Multiple white nationalist groups march with torches through the University of Virginia campus on August 11, 2017 (USA TODAY NETWORK)

Years after a white nationalist rally ended in violence in Charlottesville, a trial is set to start for one of the people charged with using flaming torches to intimidate counterprotesters.

The trial of Jacob Joseph Dix, 29, of Clarksville, Ohio, would be the first test of a 2002 law that makes it a felony to burn something to intimidate and cause fear of injury or death. Lawmakers passed the law after the state Supreme Court ruled that a cross-burning statute used to prosecute Ku Klux Klan members was unconstitutional.

On the night of August 11, 2017, several hundred white nationalists marched through the campus of the University of Virginia, many carrying torches and some chanting, “Jews Will Not Replace Us.”

Two days of demonstrations were organized in part to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and was believed to be the largest gathering of white nationalists in a decade.

Following the protest President Trump defended the group saying they included “some very fine people,” he also expressed sympathy for their demonstration against the removal of the statue.

“You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists,” Trump said. “The press has treated them absolutely unfairly.” “You also had some very fine people on both sides,” he said

Protests over the plan to remove the statue morphed into the violent “Unite the Right” rally. It was during that rally that James Alex Fields Jr., an avowed Hitler admirer, intentionally drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. Fields is serving a life sentence.

FILE -n this 2017, file photo, a protester holds a photo of Heather Heyer on Boston Common at a Free Speech rally organized by conservative activists in Boston (Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Indictments unsealed last year showed 11 people had been charged with intimidation by fire, but prosecutors have not said whether additional defendants were also charged. So far, five people have pleaded guilty to the charge. Dix is the first to go on trial.

Dix told The Daily Progress newspaper that he has changed during the last seven years.

“I'm kind of on trial for a past life,” he told the newspaper during a court hearing in January.

Dix's attorney, Peter Frazier, has argued in court documents that the white nationalists were expressing free speech protected under the First Amendment.

Henrico Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor was appointed as a special prosecutor in the case after a judge granted a request from Dix's attorney to remove Albemarle County Commonwealth's Attorney James Hingeley’s office from the case because of a conflict of interest involving an assistant commonwealth's attorney.

The trial in Albemarle Circuit Court is expected to last about a week.