Appeals By 'Unite The Right' Rallygoers Rejected By Supreme Court

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — The U.S. Supreme Court chose not to hear the appeals of two California men who, as members of a white supremacist group, participated in the deadly white national rally in Charlottesville in August 2017.

The high court said Monday it would not take the cases of Michael Miselis and Benjamin Daley, who participated in the rally as members of the Rise Above Movement. Both men pleaded guilty to federal rioting charges in connection with the gathering in Charlottesville where white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups from across the country rallied.

Miselis and Daley admitted they punched and kicked demonstrators who showed up to protest against white nationalists during the “Unite the Right” rally. Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old resident of nearby Fluvanna County, was killed when she was walking with fellow counterprotesters and was struck by a car driven by white nationalist James Fields in the downtown mall area of Charlottesville.

Miselis and Daley were indicted in October 2018 on two charges: traveling to incite riots and conspiracy to riot.

The two men had challenged their convictions by arguing the Anti-Riot Act, a law they pleaded guilty to violating, is overly broad under the First Amendment’s free speech clause. A federal appeals court had ruled against them.

Daley was sentenced to 37 months in prison. Miselis was sentenced to 27 months.

The two men were hoping the Supreme Court would hear their appeal of the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

Daley, a member of the Rise Above Movement, owned a tree-trimming business in Southern California and had previously spent time in jail for illegally possessing a firearm. He was among the large group who marched through the University of Virginia campus carrying torches on the night of Aug. 11, 2017, HuffPost reported in 2018. They chanted “Jews will not replace us!” and attacked anti-racist protesters on the north side of the university's Rotunda.

Prosecutors said Daley was “chiefly responsible” for organizing RAM’s presence at the Unite the Right rally, The Associated Press reported.

Fellow RAM member Miselis was an aerospace engineer for defense contractor Northrop Grumman until July 2018, when he was fired from his job after his membership in RAM was exposed by ProPublica.

Miselis can be seen in video footage from the Charlottesville rally shoving a Black counter-protester to the ground and punching him.

The Rise Above Movement, based in Southern California, expresses contempt for Muslims, Jews and immigrants. RAM trains members in mixed martial arts, skills they put to use assaulting people at rallies, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Experts see connections between the white nationalist groups that participated in the Unite the Right rally Charlottesville in August 2017 and the assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump on Jan. 6.

“We’ve seen a rising tide of attacks by far-right extremists in recent years,” Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, told Frontline. “The threat is coming from a host of ideologies, from white supremacists to incels, to everything in between. Unfortunately, the attacks are becoming both more frequent and deadly.”

This story includes reporting from the Associated Press.