Erica Shively has represented protest defendants as well and said she has about five or six cases left.

“We’re kind of winding down, but we are hitting the more serious felony cases,” she said.

2018 should close the book on the protests' criminal cases, she added, but 2019 could possibly see appeals. Three are active now with one already heard.

Shively also said the prosecution's recharging of defendants demonstrated a "financial warfare" against people headed to trial.

"What we were seeing is they would wait until our client had purchased their plane tickets, flown to North Dakota, the attorneys had spent all their time preparing for trial and then they would dismiss," she said, only to be recharged soon after or later.

"I'm fundamentally against that kind of coercion," she said of the perceived effort to land guilty pleas through recharging. She added she hasn’t seen any recharging since the summer.

Saylor said the recharging also put warrants out on people who weren't even aware they had new charges, opening them up to being searched whenever, wherever.