Possibility of Mistrial Looms in Trial of White Supremacists

The trial of 14 white supremacists in Fort Smith, Ark., could end in a mistrial, the federal judge trying the case has warned.

U.S. District Court Judge Morris Arnold last week told the federal prosecuting attorneys in the case, Michael Fitzhugh and Steven Snyder, that much of the evidence being presented in court is “hearsay” and that he has been allowing its presentation to continue because the prosecution promised to corroborate it later, according to Larry Lee, a reporter for the Southwest Times Record in Fort Smith who has been covering the trial.

Lee explained that hearsay evidence is normally not allowed, but that exception is made in the case of conspiracy. The white supremacists indicted for attempting to overthrow the United States government are standing trial on the charge of seditious conspiracy.

Arnold reportedly has had to instruct the jury repeatedly to ignore evidence as hearsay, and said that if he has to instruct the jury to ignore evidence too frequently, he will have no choice but to declare a mistrial, Lee reported.

The trial was slowed down early this week with the death of Arnold’s father on Saturday. About two days’ proceedings were canceled because of this.

Lee also said that several defense attorneys told him there probably will be a direct acquittal for two of the defendants in the case, William Wade and Robert Smalley, because there was reportedly no evidence against them that they had participated in any plot to overthrow the government.

Prosecution attorneys could not be reached for comment. But according to Lee, the prosecution was expected to rest its case as early as Friday or Monday.

Wade is charged with attempting to kill federal Judge H. Franklin Waters and FBI special agent Jack Knox for their roles in the trial of an Arkansas couple who had been convicted of harboring Gordon Kahl, a fugitive member of the white supremacists group Posse Comitatus.

Smalley is charged in the plot to overthrow the federal government by force.

The possibility of a mistrial is discussed at great length by Robert Miles, a key defendant who allegedly was part of a core group that initiated a plot to overthrow the government. Miles, a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and so-called ambassador-at-large of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations, reports the news in two recorded telephone reports on “hotlines” of the white supremacist movement.