Judge rejects argument to dismiss charges over white supremacist’s racist rants

A judge declined Wednesday to dismiss charges against the leader of a white supremacy group, setting the stage for a trial to determine whether the man’s racist rants were free speech or illegal threats.

William A. White, commander of the Roanoke-based American National Socialist Workers Party, is scheduled to go on trial starting next week in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.

Although defense attorneys argued that White’s e-mails and online postings were protected by the First Amendment, Judge James Turk denied their motion to dismiss the charges.

“I think the indictment is sufficient to go to trial,” Turk said. “It may not be sufficient to go to a jury.”

The judge’s comments suggest that after prosecutors complete their case against White, he might reconsider whether the neo-Nazi’s comments amounted to true threats, which are not protected by the U.S. Constitution.

White, 32, is charged with using e-mail, the telephone and his now-defunct Web site to threaten about a half-dozen strangers across the country, usually after they said or did something that offended his racist beliefs.

Also at Wednesday’s pretrial hearing, Turk opted not to have an anonymous jury. The government had wanted to identify jurors only by number to protect them from possible harm by White — or at the least, to keep him from posting their personal information online, as he is prone to do.

Even though the judge rejected White’s argument that he was engaging in protected political speech, defense attorney David Damico said he hopes to make that appeal a second time to the jury.

Prosecutors will try to stop him.

White’s “purported understanding of the law and his belief that his conduct was legal is wholly irrelevant,” Justice Department attorney John Richmond wrote in a motion seeking to exclude testimony about First Amendment protections.

That kind of legal analysis is for the judge, not the jury, Richmond argued. Turk is expected to rule on the prosecutor’s motion sometime before Dec. 9, when White’s trial is scheduled to begin.

The trial is expected to last at least two weeks.

White, a Roanoke landlord who doubled as a neo-Nazi advocate before his arrest last year, has so far demonstrated an ability to stop just short of crossing the line between being a nuisance and a criminal.

Earlier this year, a judge in Chicago dismissed a charge that White used his Web site to encourage violence against the foreman of a jury that convicted a fellow white supremacist. The judge found that posting the name and address of the juror online did not amount to provoking imminent lawless action, and thus White’s actions were protected free speech.

But the Roanoke case against White is different — both in the charges he faces and the details of his alleged threats. For the most part, White had more direct contact with the targets he picked from Roanoke, and his comments to them were potentially more threatening than the language he used in Chicago.

For example, prosecutors say in one case that White became enraged at an administrator at the University of Delaware after reading about a diversity awareness program at the school.

After calling and identifying himself as the leader of a white supremacy group, the indictment alleges, White told a secretary that he would hunt the administrator down, and that anyone who viewed racism the way she did should be shot.