Jurors Get Aryan Nations Attack Case

A lawyer for a mother and son who were attacked as they drove past the Aryan Nations’ headquarters asked jurors Wednesday to award $11.26 million in damages.

After six days of testimony, lawyer Morris Dees asked the jury to “send a message” to hate groups across the nation.

Dees, of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, suggested the jury award $1.26-million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages. The jury began deliberating late Wednesday and could come back with its own figures.

The 12-member jury was to decide whether Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler and chief of staff Michael Teague were negligent in selecting, retaining, training and supervising the white supremacist sect’s security staff.

In arguing for the defense, lawyer Edgar Steele blamed two security guards who took part in the attack--Jesse Warfield and John Yeager--and said Butler was not responsible. Steele argued that Warfield and Yeager were drunk, against regulations, when they attacked plaintiff Victoria Keenan and her son Jason on the evening of July 1, 1998.

Steele, who represents Butler, Teague and the sect, suggested jurors award the Keenans $4,000 to $10,000 each for their distress.

Warfield and Yeager, who represented themselves as defendants, briefly addressed the jury, taking responsibility for the attack, but steadfastly refusing to implicate Butler. The defense rested earlier in the day.

Dees asked the jury to award hefty punitive damages to send a message “to people who are evil, who are dangerous, who get on this stand and lie, who shoot at people down a public road.”

Dees characterized Butler as a purveyor of hate who controls an army recruited in prisons across the country. Butler’s vision of America is one of white superiority that ignores the accomplishments of the country’s minorities, Dees said.

“You are the conscience of this community,” Dees told the jury. “Tell Richard Butler, ‘We don’t believe in your America, Mr. Butler.’ ”

Dees has previously won large awards against the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups. He has said he hopes the case will bankrupt the Aryan Nations.

Steele conceded that there was “no question Victoria Keenan and her son are good people who were terrorized,” but he blamed Warfield and Yeager, whom he called “wing nuts.”

“But for their drunkenness, these good people wouldn’t have been injured,” Steele said, arguing their wrongful acts could not have been anticipated by Butler and Teague.