Jury Is Asked to Look Past Hate Speech

Attorneys for a white supremacist leader charged with trying to have a federal judge killed urged jurors Wednesday to look beyond his hateful rhetoric and scrutinize the prosecution’s evidence, particularly tapes recorded by an FBI informant.

Matthew Hale, 32, is charged with soliciting the murder of U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow, who had ruled against him in a trademark lawsuit.

The case against Hale has been “an appeal to passion and prejudice,” defense attorney Thomas Anthony Durkin said in closing arguments, pleading with jurors to give Hale a fair verdict despite “the venom he spews.”

The jury was expected to begin deliberations today.

Lefkow, who was never attacked, ordered Hale in 2002 to stop using the name World Church of the Creator because the words were trademarked by an Oregon-based religious group that had no ties to Hale and rejects his views.

Prosecutors say Hale was furious after Lefkow’s ruling and urged his bodyguard to kill the judge.

Durkin, who called no witnesses during the two-week trial, said the only voice on the tapes urging violence is the bodyguard’s.

The jury, including five black jurors and one Latino, heard hours of racial and ethnic slurs from Hale on the tapes.

Hale faces up to 30 years in federal prison if convicted.