One of two white supremacists charged with plotting to kill President-elect Barack Obama and dozens of other black people argued Thursday that a federal grand jury was racially stacked against him.
Daniel Cowart, 20, said his indictment should be dismissed.
A grand jury indicted Cowart and Paul Schlesselman, 18, on Nov. 5, charging them with plotting to kill Obama, possessing a sawed-off shotgun, carrying guns across state lines to commit crimes and planning to rob a licensed firearms dealer.
Cowart and Schlesselman are awaiting trial without bond at a northwest Tennessee jail, on lock down in a two-man cell and separated from other inmates for their own safety.
In his petition, Cowart said the grand jury had two white members, while "21 were African-American or of another race or races." The jury, he said, could not "under the most modest constitutional scrutiny ... be considered fair, impartial and unprejudiced."
Prosecutors declined comment.
Authorities describe Cowart and Schlesselman as white supremacist skinheads and accuse them of plotting a robbery and killing spree in which 88 black victims were to be slain.
The spree was to culminate, authorities say, in an attack on Obama -- with Cowart and Schlesselman decked out in white tuxedoes and firing guns from a speeding car.
No trial date has been set. Cowart and Schlesselman are expected to stand trial in the town of Jackson about 75 miles north of Memphis, since the crimes they are charged with allegedly occurred in that area.
"There had to be either a systematic exclusion of white people from that (grand jury) pool or there was some unexplained deviation in the composition of that pool by which you get two white people out of 23," Byrd said.
Byrd did not say how he knew the racial makeup of the grand jury. "That's the information I have," he said. "I'm not stereotyping anybody. What I'm saying is the law requires a fair cross section of the community and that didn't happen."
Byrd refused to discuss the charges against his client or his alleged affiliation with white supremacist groups.One of two white supremacists charged with plotting to kill President-elect Barack... more
Reporting from Washington -- Thousands convicted of a misdemeanor for threatening or assaulting a spouse or girlfriend could once again own guns because of a flaw in the federal law.
That prospect grew more likely Monday after the Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing to a government lawyer who argued that a crime of domestic violence should result in a loss of gun rights.
Neither families nor police officers should face "the powder keg situation of a domestic offender with a gun," said Nicole Saharsky, a Justice Department lawyer.
But she ran into sharp questioning from justices who said the law was badly written.
Congress in 1996 sought to strengthen the laws against domestic violence. Before, only persons convicted of violent felonies in such situations lost their rights to own a gun. Going a step further, lawmakers adopted an amendment to take away gun rights for those who had a "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" on their records.
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), the amendment's sponsor, said he was closing a loophole. In domestic violence cases, local prosecutors often agree to have defendants plead guilty to a misdemeanor assault or battery, which usually calls for less than a year in jail, he said.
"There is no reason for someone who beats their wives or abuses their children to own a gun. When you combine wife beaters and guns, the end result is more death," Lautenberg said in the Senate before the amendment was enacted.
But last year, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia cast doubt on the law's reach. Its judges decided the federal gun ban did not cover misdemeanor convictions involving assault or battery at home. Instead, it said the federal ban applied only to those convicted under a state's domestic violence law.
That would make the federal gun law "a dead letter in two-thirds of the states," according to the government's lawyer. Saharsky said most states do not have misdemeanor laws specifically targeting domestic violence.
Justice Antonin Scalia was unswayed by that argument. "People are governed by the law that is passed, not by the law that Congress intended to pass," he said. He and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the law as written appeared to apply only to domestic violence measures, not the more common laws against assault and battery.
Scalia wrote the 5-4 opinion in June which held for the first time that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual's right to have a gun. He said then that the decision did not shield criminals who committed serious crimes with a gun.
But during Monday's argument, Scalia said possessing a gun was "lawful conduct," and a wife-beating charge lodged against a West Virginia man was "not that serious an offense."
The government lawyer shot back that the defendant "hit his wife all around the face until it swelled out, kicked her all around her body, kicked her in the ribs. . . . "
"Then he should have been charged with a felony," Scalia interjected, "but he wasn't."
The defendant, Randy Hayes, pleaded guilty in 1994 to misdemeanor battery of his then-wife. Ten years later, police responded to a domestic violence call from his home and learned he had owned or sold several guns. He was convicted of illegal gun possession under the 1996 amendment.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence said a ruling for Hayes "could re-arm thousands of convicted domestic violence abusers." About 14% "of all police officer deaths occur during a response to domestic violence calls," the group said.Reporting from Washington -- Thousands convicted of a misdemeanor for threatening or... more
An Oklahoma woman invited to a rural Louisiana campsite for a Ku Klux Klan initiation ritual was shot and killed after she asked to be taken back to town, the sheriff of a New Orleans suburb said Tuesday.
Eight people were arrested after authorities found the woman's body hidden under some brush, on the side of a road several miles from the remote campsite where the initiation was planned.
Investigators found weapons, several flags and six Klan robes at the campsite, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain said in a news release.
Strain said the woman, whose identity was not released, was recruited over the Internet to participate in the ritual and then return to her home state to find other members for the white supremacist group.
But Strain said the group's leader, Raymond "Chuck" Foster, 44, shot and killed the woman Sunday after a fight broke out when she tried to leave. Foster was charged with second-degree murder and is being held without bond.
Capt. George Bonnett, a spokesman for the sheriff's department, said he didn't know what the initiation involved.
"We haven't completely sorted out if they finished the initiation," he said. "I assume that they had started it, but I don't know if they were finished."
Bonnett said he doesn't know if Foster has an attorney. He also said that in three years with the department, this was the first time he had seen a case involving the KKK.An Oklahoma woman invited to a rural Louisiana campsite for a Ku Klux Klan initiation... more
To see Neel Kashkari field questions from a crowded room, one might think he's still being paid by Goldman Sachs rather than American taxpayers.
The interim assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial stabilization yesterday had a tone of impatience during a question-and-answer session, leaving some attendees feeling cheated.
The Q&A followed a keynote speech that Kashkari gave at a conference in Midtown Manhattan, which was attended by hundreds of financial executives.
When it came time for questions, the former Goldman Sachs executive told the eager audience that he had time for just "two or three."
In response to the first question, about the government's latest lifeline for beleaguered insurance company American International Group, Kashkari gave a clipped response before quickly moving on.
"This morning's action at AIG was a one-off event" that was necessary for the financial stability of the markets, he said. "He didn't say anything that I couldn't have learned from going to the Web site," griped one mortgage entrepreneur. Treasury spokeswoman Jennifer Zuccarelli said it's not unusual for public officials to answer a few questions before moving on. Kashkari's impatient tone comes amid a growing desire for openness about how government agencies, including the Treasury, are handling billions of taxpayer dollars being used to prop up Wall Street.
Yesterday's news that the Treasury and Federal Reserve increased the size of American International Group's rescue to around $150 billion from $123 billion intensified concern that Uncle Sam isn't spending wisely.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg News sued the Federal Reserve for information under the US Freedom of Information Act, claiming the Fed refuses to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans as well as the troubled assets the bank is accepting as collateral.To see Neel Kashkari field questions from a crowded room, one might think he's... more
