◆ SpookStack

34 Nos. 77-1698, 77-1210 & 77-1370 Corp., 370 U.S. 690, 700-01 (1962): In such a situation, “it is the jury which ‘weighs the contradictory evidence and inferences’ and draws ‘the ultimate conclusion as to the facts.’” Jd. (citation omitted). When a plaintiff alleges a conspiracy to violate civil rights, “the existence or nonexistence of a conspiracy is essentially a factual issue that the jury, not the trial judge, should decide.” Adickes, supra, 398 U.S. at 176. (Black, J., concurring.) We do wish, however, to make one observation about the nature of the conspiracy described by plaintiffs’ evidence in this case.2° We believe that plaintiffs have presented a prima facie case, not of a single conspiracy, but of two conspiracies designed to violate their rights in distinct ways. These conspiracies share many of the same participants who form “the common_nucleus of separate conspiracies,” Varelli, supra, 407 F.2d at 748, but they are not identical conspiracies. The first con- == spiracy, as we view the evidence, involves the state and federal defendants who participated in the pre-raid preparations and planning, and the raid itself. The sec- ond conspiracy, involving many of these same defen- dants, was the alleged coverup of evidence regarding the _ instigation, preparation and execution of the raid, and the post-raid legal harassment of the plaintiffs. These two conspiracies required entirely different kinds of ac- tivities, both legal and illegal, to achieve their ends. But more importantly, these two conspiracies had distinct objectives. The first conspiracy was designed to subvert and eliminate the Black Panther Party and its members, thereby suppressing both a potential source of unrest, turmoil, and even violence in the black com- munity, and a vital, radical-black political organization. The second conspiracy harassed the survivors of the raid. Moreover, the post-raid conspiracy was intended to frustrate any redress the plaintiffs might seek and, . more importantly, to conceal the true character of the 20 It should be noted that when we refer to a conspiracy among defendants, we are not passing on the ultimate validity of plaintiffs’ claims. We merely are commenting on plaintiffs’ claims and evidence from-which a jury reasonably could infer that a conspiracy or conspiracies existed. 7