In the criminal justice system
the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups,
the police who investigate crime
and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
This comes out on 104th.
Dr. Ashworth's gonna be mad if I'm not back by 1:00.
Don't worry. I'll get you back.
Cecilia.
Look. Somebody dropped this.
What is it? I don't know. You open it.
It's a diamond ring.
Yeah, how about that?
We have to turn it in.
No.
You keep it.
No, we can't do that. It's somebody's...
Tino, you're crazy!
I love you, Cecilia, and I want you in my life.
Oh, my God, Tino!
Oh, my God!
She's alive.
The girl died on the way to the hospital.
She say anything?
No. No ID on her.
EMS figured her for 15 or 16.
Found a set of house keys right here.
Plastic heart. "Happy. "
Penlight.
"Quickpro Printing. " Midtown.
What else?
Found a pair of lady's wire-rim glasses right here,
blood on the frames.
Drag marks leading up to the tree.
This pipe here has blood and hair on it.
Same deal with the stick.
There were bruises all over her body.
They hung her up and beat her like a piņata.
Very festive.
They went one better.
We counted a dozen rocks with traces of blood.
Festive and biblical.
Yeah. Yeah, I sent out a few hundred of these
couple of months ago, when we opened. Why?
It was found at a crime scene.
Do you still have the list of people you sent them to?
Yeah, probably.
What kind of crime?
Homicide. It was on a key chain.
Key chain?
Yeah, on a blue heart. Said "happy" on it.
Who...
Who was killed?
Oh, God.
Christina. My baby.
She had glasses, uh, silver, wire-rim?
We found a pair like that.
What time did Christina leave for school this morning?
Uh, 8:00. She goes to Brandeis High.
She... She takes the bus.
She usually go with friends?
No.
Uh, she doesn't know a lot of people.
I relocated my business from Philadelphia three months ago.
She wanted friends.
But it's not easy for her.
Was she...
Was she violated?
The M.E. doesn't think so.
Um, did she have a boyfriend?
No.
She ever cut school?
No, never.
She helped out with her brothers.
Weekends she spent at the print shop.
She was never any trouble.
She always tried to be nice.
She just wanted people to like her.
She ever make it to school?
She took her first three classes, then she cut out.
Parents said she had a knapsack with her when she left home.
Wasn't in her locker at school.
Get people to search the park and the area
all the way to Columbus Avenue.
We called the MTA about her bus pass.
Good. She was strangled with a dog collar?
A choke chain.
Any chance forensics can trace the manufacturer?
Looks pretty new. Leather handle has a unique design. Why not?
Well, keep in touch.
Lennie.
What's up?
The mope that shot my daughter?
DOA in the East Village. Heroin overdose.
Drug problem has an upside, huh, Lennie?
Solved my problem.
Curtis. Where?
We'll be right down.
Her bus pass turned up.
I didn't steal no bus pass. That's my bus pass.
You're Christina Osborne?
Yes, sir.
This is Christina Osborne. That look like you?
Mmm-hmm. That's me.
And where'd you get this bus pass?
Mayor Giuliani gave it to me.
He give you these, too?
Course not. I got them from my travel agent today.
I'm going on vacation.
Monserrat? Where?
All these are for Montserrat in the West Indies.
I'm taking a bus there.
Where's your travel agent?
He must've picked them out of the trash.
I tossed five boxes of outdated pamphlets yesterday morning.
I thought Montserrat was one of the jet-set hotspots.
Too hot. Most of the island got buried
under five feet of volcanic ash last year.
Uh, this one's mine. That one belongs to the hair salon upstairs.
Okay. Here we go.
Besides the homeless man, you see anyone else messing with this stuff?
I don't keep my eye on it.
Anybody wants to steal my garbage, they're welcome to it.
Hello, Christina Osborne.
Well, we got CD's, we got one, two, three t-shirts,
make-up kit, socks and underwear.
Toothpaste and toothbrush?
The LUDs for the Osborne's phone showed two calls
to one of the girl's friends in Philly. Lori Summers.
One call was a week ago.
Second one was Thursday afternoon.
The day before she was killed.
A 20-minute call.
Have you talked to Miss Summers?
We called. The mother said the girl's still in school, won't be home till dinner.
Well, she'll probably be more talkative in person.
In person?
What, you sending us down for cheese steaks?
If you bring me back some scrapple.
We just talked about stuff, you know, like school and boys.
Just stuff.
If you don't mind, Mrs. Summers, we'd like to talk to Lori alone.
Lori,
if you want to help us find the people who did this to Christina,
you're gonna have to tell us everything.
Even things that she asked you to keep secret.
Did she tell you she was going to run away?
She wasn't running away.
Then where was she going?
She could just be so dumb sometimes.
What do you mean?
She said she was going to this big party out in the sticks, on a farm,
with these friends she made.
She wanted me to meet her and she sent me this flyer.
I couldn't believe it. She didn't have a clue.
A clue about what?
That's what she sent me.
Nuremberg, Pennsylvania.
I told her I wouldn't go. I'm Jewish.
And what'd she say?
She didn't get it. She just wanted me to meet her dumb friends.
It's not possible.
My daughter wouldn't get mixed up with creeps like this.
Didn't sound like she knew what she was getting into.
Any idea who these friends might've been?
Nazis?
Nobody jumps out.
Uh, let me check something here.
See, that's printed on special-order stock.
Last month I did a job with the same kind of paper.
Same color.
I had five reams left over. Now I have four.
Could one of your employees have printed this?
It had to be on an evening I wasn't here.
Could be Jessica Buell.
She works part-time and I've seen her talking with Christina.
So I talked to her, big deal.
She's my boss's daughter. I'm not gonna be rude to her.
You see her last Friday?
When she was killed?
No. I was at school.
I go to Queens Vocational.
And last weekend?
I was at my boyfriend's. Why're you asking?
We're busybodies.
What's your boyfriend's name and address?
Derek Harland.
13516th Avenue.
In Whitestone.
I was there all weekend.
Oh, yeah? What'd your parents say about that?
My dad's driving a truck in Arizona.
My mother works a double shift at Brightman's.
They got other things to worry about.
I gotta go, okay?
Me and Jessie stayed in bed the whole weekend.
Except for going to the can.
No road trips to Pennsylvania?
We had our own party going.
What about Friday morning?
I did stuff for my moms.
Like I gotta take her to do the laundry right now.
See? You got her all worried about me now.
For nothing.
Derek was here all weekend, with his girlfriend.
They never went out once?
I don't know.
I worked Saturday and Sunday at Target.
Why?
A young girl was hurt in the city.
Uh, where was he Friday morning?
He did errands for me.
He's a good kid.
Sure.
I'm gonna need a recent picture of him.
I don't have any recent picture.
Is everything all right, Mrs. Harland?
Yeah, sure.
And where's Mr. Harland?
He's a merchant seaman.
We're divorced, since Derek was nine.
So it's just you and Derek, huh?
Yeah.
You guys are a real pain in the ass.
These aren't very good pictures.
Yes or no, Mr. Zarkin?
Okay, no.
Thanks a bunch.
Last Friday, around noon or 1:00,
they might've put something in that dumpster over there.
Oh, I saw some kids, about three or four of them getting into a van.
What kind of van?
Well, it was black, with a skull on it.
It didn't look like a Good Humor truck.
All right, thanks.
Get a warrant, hook up Derek's van...
There weren't any fibers or fluids in the van we could trace back to the victim.
I found vegetative debris that could've come from any city park.
Still waiting for the good news.
I found the remains of various insects on the radiator grille.
Including three fresh specimens of the Papaipema Moth.
This is very exciting.
Oh, we can hardly contain ourselves.
The Papaipema Moth is found in only five counties
in eastern Pennsylvania,
near Hickory Run Park.
Didn't your suspect say he wasn't in Pennsylvania?
Well, maybe this bug took a wrong turn on the interstate.
You took a wrong turn, Derek.
You lied to us.
A witness made and your van on Franklin Street Friday.
Wasn't me.
Oh, it was you, all right.
You and your friends killed Christina, then you ditched her knapsack,
then you drove off to your little Nazi hoedown.
I was in Queens. You ask my moms.
Does that make you feel like a big man, having your mommy lie for you like that?
Shut up!
You better sit your ass down, kid.
My house, my rules, now, sit down!
Hell with you!
I want a lawyer! Now!
He was home all weekend.
That's all there is to that.
He's got one hell of a temper.
Gets it from his father.
He damn near broke the table in the interrogation room.
He do that at home a lot?
Hit things?
He hit you?
If I get in the way.
He always been like this?
He's gotten worse.
Do you want to help him?
She was just 16.
She was supposed to go with Derek and his friends to Pennsylvania.
But something happened.
He left Friday morning.
I didn't see him till Monday.
What about his friends?
I heard Derek tell someone on the phone
they're still on that farm in Pennsylvania.
They're just like him.
They scare the hell out of me.
Earl Burnett?
He's back at the house.
Tell him Frank Shepard of the State Police is here
to execute a New York State arrest warrant
for four juveniles.
Their names are on the warrant.
If Mr. Burnett refuses to turn them over,
I'm authorized to come on his property and look for them.
And to seize anything else I might find in violation of State regulations,
including that modified AK.
Take a seat. Keep your mouths shut.
Train back to New York leaves in half an hour.
Back to their mommies and daddies and lawyers.
I might have to break the speed limit
getting you guys to the station.
We wouldn't want you to do that.
Uh, when's the next train?
Three hours.
You got some coffee?
That's a load of crap!
Derek wouldn't talk to you.
Then who told us where to find you? An 8-Ball?
He put all the weight on you.
He's selling that, and the DA's buying it.
Load of crap. Derek's my white brother.
Oh, and I'm sure he'll come visit you every other Sunday.
Now you got two hours, Phillip.
Once we get on that train, we stop listening.
That's just a load, man!
I ain't listening to this beaner anymore!
You! In here. Let's go.
Let's hang fire on these humps.
I got a feeling about the last kid, Stymons.
I think he's a bleeder.
Uh, Peter Stymons.
Your ID card says you're 18.
You know what that means, don't you?
What?
Adult correctional facility.
Sing Sing, Attica.
Your buddies will be going to juvie hall.
It's like summer camp.
You don't have much time to help yourself.
We can't control what happens when we get to New York.
You understand?
You want to tell us what you all did to Christina?
Come on, kid.
You show us some respect and we'll look out for you, okay?
Forget it, Lennie. Kid doesn't even respect himself.
Derek's girlfriend, Jessica,
told her to meet us in the park.
Derek hit her first, with the pipe.
We all hit her.
We hung her up, we must've hit her a hundred times.
We wanted her dead.
Why? Wasn't she one of you?
She ratted on us.
She told her Jew friend we were going to the farm.
She was gonna tell everything. We had to shut her up.
What everything?
The stuff we do.
We stomp fags and kikes and niggers, man.
We kick ass for the white race.
Don't look so pleased with yourself.
They plead not guilty, Your Honor.
The People intend to try each of the defendants as an adult.
And we ask for remand.
Your Honor... They killed a 16-year-old girl
with a viciousness rarely seen in this jurisdiction.
Four of the defendants escaped to Pennsylvania.
They're all being investigated for other hate crimes...
Got it, Miss Carmichael. Bail's denied.
Your Honor, pursuant to CPL 210.43,
I request the case against Peter Stymons be removed to family court.
Why? Mr. Stymons is 18.
As a matter of fact, he turned 15 last month.
His parents are here with his birth certificate.
This looks in order, Miss Carmichael.
I don't see how the People can object.
Peter Stymons is remanded to the juvenile authorities.
Motion to suppress Peter Stymons' statement.
He's underage.
Police shouldn't have talked to him.
The cops check his age?
The kid was carrying a fake ID that said he was 18.
The kid is out of luck.
The cops made a good faith mistake.
Then I won't worry about it.
US attorney called to ask if there's a civil rights prosecution here.
Far as we can tell, this wasn't a bias crime.
The victim was one of their own.
What's the matter, they run out of people to hate?
Mr. Stymons had what looked like a valid ID
that gave his age as 18. You can't penalize the police for his subterfuge.
Phony ID? Isn't the drinking age 21?
My client told me he needed the ID to buy cigarettes.
Well, let me give him another reason to stop smoking.
I'm gonna deny the motion, Miss Caldwell.
There's more to it than a fake ID.
Instead of following procedure and taking my client back to New York
on the first available train,
the police held him in Pennsylvania for three hours.
Your Honor, there could be 100 legitimate reasons
why they took a later train.
Prove one.
Did the police give you a reason, Mr. McCoy?
No.
I'm sorry. I can't bend backwards that far anymore.
The statement's out.
So now you can't use the statement against any of them?
That's exactly right.
I hope you can pull this one out of the crapper.
Any prints on the murder weapons, the pipe, the rocks?
Nothing useable.
What about the clothes the kids were wearing?
No fibers or fluids from Christina.
What are you saying?
The police department is no match for six mouth-breathing skinheads?
We got one lead.
Forensics tracked down the manufacturer of the choke chain.
They're supposed to get back to us
with the name of their wholesaler in the Northeast.
Why don't you get back to them?
The girl from the pet store where you bought the chain remembered you.
She remembered you told her your dog's name was Derek.
You know damn well she had nothing to do with it.
You have a dozen witnesses who saw her at Queens Vocational
at the time of the murder.
And we have her fingerprints in the van.
Her lies to the police, her buying the chain
and luring Christina to the park.
Your friends may have delivered the death blows,
but you conspired with them.
But I didn't know. Jessica, hold on.
She'll plead to obstruction.
She denies any foreknowledge of the murder.
That's it? I want names. I want testimony.
Let's hear it.
Christina was asking all kinds of questions, about what we were doing.
She said she was gonna tell her dad.
I told her forget that.
I told her if she wanted to be our friend
she had to come out to the farm.
I told her Derek was gonna pick her up.
And what were you planning to do with her?
Just take her to the farm,
you know, scare her, to shut her up.
After Derek came to pick me up with the others,
he told me what they did to her.
I couldn't believe it.
You know, she just wanted to be our friend.
Derek said Willis told him he had to,
we had to get rid of traitors.
Who's Willis?
Tom Willis.
Derek hangs out at his place in Commack all the time.
A lot of skins go there.
He's on the Internet, he has a newspaper.
He's what? A white supremacist?
He's just down for his race, that's all. You know...
White pride, worldwide.
Jessica don't know what she's talking about.
Christina never showed up.
Derek, now is not the time...
Oh, hell, yeah, now's the time.
Jessica's a lying bitch!
So you never heard of Tom Willis?
You're damn right I heard of him.
You do what he tells you to?
He tells white people to respect ourselves,
to respect our kind.
He talks the truth about white America.
He tells us God meant for white people
to have dominance over all the beasts!
Mr. Harland!
He tells us the white race will never die out!
So to hell with all you punk-ass lawyers...
Mr. Morrison, if your client doesn't shut up...
What kind of a white man are you?
You work for the Jews!
Guard.
I want Tom Willis.
Detective Price from the intelligence unit thinks he can help us.
Raymond Stoller is facing 10 years mandatory
in a second offense weapons possession.
He knows Mr. Willis,
he's been to his meetings,
and he's willing to help in return for consideration.
Now we think he can deliver.
Deliver what exactly?
An incriminating statement by Mr. Willis.
What? He's gonna wear a wire?
No wire.
I don't aim on getting killed.
His word against Willis'?
That'll impress the jury.
I want a cop with him, to witness the statement.
I'm cool with that.
Who?
Not you, Pancho.
Or the soul sister.
Hey, I wasn't gonna volunteer anyway.
Mo, can you come in here?
This is Detective Morris LaMotte.
What?
Perfect.
Hey, Tom.
Ricky. Long time.
I want you to meet a buddy of mine.
Brian, this is Tom Willis.
Hey.
Rick fill you in on the program? Yeah.
Like what you see?
Oh yeah, so far.
How are your legal problems?
Going inside.
You got friends there.
Including the five skins just got popped for killing that girl.
You hear about that? Oh, yeah.
Oh, you know them?
Could be, could be.
Get yourselves another beer. I'll talk to you later.
Willis rope-a-doped us all night.
But, uh, it wasn't all a waste a time.
I bought one of his tapes.
White people have got their work cut out.
We got the Jews and the mud people out to destroy us.
We got these sexual deviants infecting our country with their immorality.
White people have got to be prepared for technological, barbaric warfare.
It could happen tomorrow...
Nice crowd shot. ... it could happen today.
There were more tapes like this one?
I was told the guy records all his speeches.
Derek Harland and his pals might be on one of the tapes.
If it shows them with Willis, it might corroborate Jessica's story.
Let's get a warrant for these tapes,
and one for Willis.
What charge?
Detective LaMotte said,
he saw alcohol being served to minors.
Before my very eyes.
Everybody's welcome at my house.
Every white body.
We got sodas, hot dogs. Weekends, people bring their families.
But I never met these kids.
And what about Christina Osborne?
You ever hear of her?
Is she one of the minors I allegedly served beer to?
No. She's the 16-year-old girl your stormtroopers beat and strangled.
Let's get one thing straight.
I don't have stormtroopers.
I don't have members. I don't have an organization.
I put out a newsletter. I receive contributions.
You preach violence and hate to a bunch of skinheads.
I tell white Aryan people to stand up for their God-given rights.
A little Nazi philosophy along with their beer and pretzels?
You got your opinion. I got mine.
Now, can I just pay my $2 and go?
...gotta stand up for themselves!
Anything?
Yeah. Detective LaMotte's getting real good with the remote.
Can we just skip the formalities and shoot Willis?
There.
Isn't that Harland?
Shaking hands with Willis on the left?
This was shot four months ago.
It's not enough.
It's personal contact between conspirators. It's corroborative evidence.
It corroborates that Willis is a friendly guy.
I'm sorry, guys.
We have no evidence of an agreement between Willis and Harland,
no evidence of an overt act by Willis in furtherance of the conspiracy.
We have to bounce him.
Get up, Adolf.
The name's Willis.
Whatever. You'll be given a summons for violation of section 65
of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.
Then you can go.
Free at last.
Thank God Almighty I'm free at last.
Forget about Willis.
You have your hands full with those mixed-up kids.
Willis is the fountainhead of their brilliant behavior.
Nice rhetoric.
Can you prove that he had direct involvement in the girl's death?
No.
By the way, how is that murder case?
We have the choke chain purchased by Harland's girlfriend.
Inconclusive.
She bought a chain, not the chain.
We have Harland's admission to his girlfriend.
Very conclusive.
From a witness whose credibility is unassailable?
Not out of the woods yet.
We need to turn one more kid.
There's that 15 year old, Peter Stymons.
He talked once. He might talk again.
I'm offering you a three-year minimum instead of nine.
It means you don't go to adult prison.
It's a good offer, Peter.
I don't know. My Aryan brothers are gonna...
Shut up with that crap!
My old man took a bullet fighting the Nazis.
I'll be damned if his grandson is gonna stand up for that garbage.
Peter, please, do what they want.
Okay.
You'll testify about the murder?
Did Tom Willis tell you or Derek what to do with Christina?
No. We never talked to him about her.
But he always said, you can't put up with no traitors. You gotta get rid of them.
You told the police you assaulted gays and other minorities.
Mmm-hmm.
Me and Derek and Jimmy Parnell.
Who's Jimmy Parnell?
He works with Mr. Willis, organizing and stuff.
Him and us curbed a fag in the city.
Curbed?
Yeah, you know, break his jaw against the sidewalk.
That's covered under the plea agreement, Mr. McCoy.
That's right. That's what we like to see.
White youth standing up for their race and not backing down.
The police arrested Parnell.
They matched his prints to another hate crime in Albany last year.
Good. We might need him.
Look at this.
It's been great visiting with the young Hammerskins here in Brooklyn,
getting out the message to kick ass on the homosexuals and Negros.
How about you, son, you kick ass sometime?
Uh, yeah.
I bet you kick some ass about every day.
Yes, sir.
That's right.
That's what we like to see.
White youth standing up for their race and not backing down.
White pride, worldwide.
Yeah!
It's disgusting. What's your point?
Willis advocates hate and violence to a group of kids
he knows are violent.
He tells them to eliminate traitors.
That makes him criminally responsible for Christina Osborne's death.
Mmm. Without proof he conspired.
I'm not charging him as a co-conspirator.
I'm charging him as an accomplice.
All I have to prove is that he commanded or caused them
to kill Christina Osborne.
Caused them how? With his lectures to a crowd?
Yes.
Isn't that free speech, covered by the First Amendment?
This isn't speech.
These are commands to kill.
Make out the arrest warrant.
The Supreme Court said it 80 years ago, in Schenck v. US.
The only question is whether the words create a clear and present danger
that they'll cause substantive evils,
which we have a right to prevent.
And 50 years later, the Court refined the question.
Whitney v. California.
My client's words have to be likely to produce imminent lawless action.
Which is what Mr. Willis was looking to do.
In speech after speech, he exhorted violent teenagers
to quote, "Attack Jews, Negros and homosexuals"
and said, quote, "That any white person who disagrees with white power
"is a traitor who has to be destroyed. "
His words may be on the fringe of the First Amendment,
but they are clearly protected.
My client was simply voicing his opinions.
He was pulling the trigger till the gun fired.
Your Honor, every Supreme Court ruling
that speech posed a clear and present danger involved treason.
Mr. Willis is not advocating the violent overthrow of the government.
The First Amendment is a living, evolving thing.
The clear and present danger test was never meant to apply to treason
to the exclusion of everything else.
You must've mistaken me for a braver man, Mr. McCoy.
I'm not about to race ahead of the Supreme Court on free speech.
You're not. The court already affords less protection
to speech that becomes conduct.
Mr. Willis' words were exhortations
that became commands.
Commands are conduct...
Uh, Your Honor, a command requires criminal intent,
it also requires the expectation of the result offense.
Which are facts for a jury to decide.
Point well taken, Mr. McCoy.
Mr. Latimer, I'm denying your motion to dismiss.
See you at trial.
Willis' crony Jimmy Parnell
has agreed to testify in return for a plea on the gay-bashing.
Ludwick, Bassett and Kneller
have all pleaded to 15-to-life on murder two.
Derek Harland?
He won't talk to us. He's a lost cause.
He figures being convicted alongside Willis
will improve his standing in prison.
Or he hopes the jury'll be so distracted
by your assault on the First Amendment,
they'll forget to convict him.
You think what Willis did is protected speech?
I nearly resigned from the ACLU
when they defended that racist march in Skokie.
Nearly.
I never joined the ACLU.
But I still think what you're doing is dangerous.
Holding an extreme racist liable for a crime he inspired?
Maybe you think he has the right to yell fire in a crowded theater.
I can quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, too.
The ultimate good is better reached by free trade in ideas.
The government shouldn't interfere.
I'm with Hugo Black on this.
First Amendment guarantees are absolute.
Except for conduct.
Even Justice Black didn't think that defacing the flag was protected speech.
Willis' speeches aren't conduct.
His audiences are 15, 16, 17 years old.
We already restrict speech directed at minors.
Cigarette advertising, pornography. Why not hate messages?
You can wring your hands all you want to. I'm putting Willis out of business.
Mr. Willis told us that there was gonna be a racial holy war.
And the white Aryan people had to get ready for it.
What else did he tell you?
Uh, he said that there were traitors everywhere and we had to get rid of them.
And you believed what he told you?
Yes, sir.
I thought about it all the time.
Did you discuss these views with your parents
or with friends who weren't skinheads?
No, sir.
Mr. Willis said don't trust nobody who wasn't for the white race.
Thank you.
Peter, did Mr. Willis ever tell you or Derek Harland
to kill or injure Christina Osborne?
No, sir. He never mentioned her.
Now before you ever met Mr. Willis,
uh, did you receive psychological counseling?
Yes, sir.
Would you please tell us why?
Uh, I hit my kid brother, Davey.
In fact, you gave him a concussion and broke his arm, didn't you?
Yes, sir.
So, wouldn't it be fair to say that you were an angry and violent young man
long before you ever heard of Mr. Willis?
I guess so.
I've worked for Tom Willis the past four years,
recruiting young people for his meetings.
What kinds of kids did you target for recruitment?
Kids with emotional problems,
bad homes, problems at school, you know.
Kids like Derek Harland?
Yes, sir. I met him at a club.
I got him talking about his mom and dad
and I could tell he had a problem managing his anger.
Did you tell this to Mr. Willis?
Yes, sir.
And Tom saw Derek get out of control
at the meetings, you know, yelling, carrying on.
Did he ever comment about Derek's behavior?
Uh, yes, sir.
Tom told me Derek was gonna kill somebody someday.
He just hoped it'd be a Jew,
or a homosexual, not one of us.
Mr. Parnell, to your knowledge, did my client ever tell anyone
to kill or injure Christina Osborne?
No.
Now you're testifying today as a term of a plea bargain, isn't that right?
Yes.
For brutally attacking a gay person?
Yes.
On my client's orders?
No.
In fact, you never heard my client order anyone
to attack any specific person, isn't that right?
That's right. Except in self-defense.
No further questions.
Nothing for this witness, Your Honor.
Rebuttal, Your Honor.
Mr. Parnell,
you said Mr. Willis would tell you to attack people in self-defense.
Could you explain that?
Well, he'd tell us to provoke a violent incident and claim self-defense.
Like, if you say a gay man made a pass at you,
then you can get away with stomping his ass.
I'm just an educator.
I tell young white people to study their heritage,
to be proud of it, to build up their self-esteem.
Now, I'm very sorry Miss Osborne was killed.
I wished the young people who did it had come to me first.
Because I have never told anybody to commit murder and do violence.
Thank you.
You educate young people?
Yes.
You teach them to love their fellow man?
I teach them to love all white Aryan people.
What about the other races?
They're not my concern.
You teach young people to turn the other cheek?
I favor another part of the Bible.
An eye for an eye.
You prepare them for a racial holy war?
I teach them survival skills.
Like slamming someone's head against the curb and breaking their jaw?
No.
Isn't it a fact, Mr. Willis, that you teach young people to hate?
No.
I tell them what can be done to eliminate hatred between the races.
By eliminating the other races?
No.
People's 49.
"Our racial hatred
"is nothing more than an internal defense mechanism
"that nature has blessed us with.
"Hatred is not something to shy away from,
"to dread or to avoid.
"Hatred is our friend.
"Embrace it. "
This is an excerpt from one of your tapes.
You teach young people that hate is good.
Hate's not good.
It's just necessary.
Like killing?
Only in self-defense.
How about killing innocent women and children
because of their race?
Is that also a necessary evil?
No. I never taught that.
People's 50.
"If Hitler killed six million Jews,
"then it was an evil necessity,
"and I hate the Jews
"for making the Holocaust necessary. "
This is what you poison young people's minds with?
These are the lies you teach?
Come on, Mr. Willis, aren't you proud of your words?
I have a constitutional right to say that.
And I have a constitutional obligation
to make you bear the consequences, Mr. Willis.
Withdrawn.
Hey, I'm ordering barbecue. You in?
Thanks, no.
Milkwagon Drivers Union of Chicago v. Meadowmoor Dairies.
1941.
Reaching for the obscure?
"Utterance in a context of violence
"can lose its significance as an appeal to reason
"and become part of an instrument of force. " "... an instrument of force. "
"Such utterance was not meant to be sheltered by the Constitution. "
Felix Frankfurter.
I'd forgotten the case.
But not the heart of it.
Willis didn't incite a mob in the middle of a riot.
His hate just breeds more hate.
Doesn't serve any other purpose.
Jack, I wish we could shut him up, too,
but as officers of the court,
our constitutional obligation is to protect, not stop,
even the most controversial speaker.
Abbie, I know how thin the ice is.
So does Willis.
He thrives by exploiting these gray areas in the First Amendment.
If we want to hold him accountable for what he says,
this is as good as this kind of case gets.
He's not worth gutting the First Amendment over.
Well, if that's what I'm doing, I'll get slammed on appeal.
Still worth taking a shot.
Congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of speech.
Pass no law.
Mr. McCoy is trying to get around the Constitution
by calling what my client said conduct.
By Mr. McCoy's definition,
any kind of communication involves conduct,
except maybe ESP.
He claims my client commanded Mr. Harland
and the others to kill Christina Osborne.
Well, he must've commanded them using ESP.
You have heard witness after witness testify
that Mr. Willis never told them to kill or harm
Miss Osborne.
All Mr. McCoy has are my client's speeches.
Obnoxious, vile, racist, hate-filled speeches.
And since those speeches did not
cause a clear and present danger of imminent criminal action,
you must, in good conscience,
acquit my client.
Of course Mr. Willis never said, "Kill Christina Osborne. "
Adolph Hitler never said, "Kill this Jew or that Jew. "
But there's no doubting his intent,
nor the result of what he did say.
The defense paraphrased Supreme Court Justices Holmes and Brandeis.
I think you should hear what they actually wrote in 1927.
"No danger flowing from speech
"can be deemed clear and present,
"unless
"the incidence of the evil apprehended
"is so imminent that it may befall
"before there is opportunity for full discussion.
"If there be time to expose the evil
"by the processes of education. "
When we talk about free speech,
we mean the exchange of ideas,
dialogue, full discussion.
Where was the opportunity for discussion in Mr. Willis' world?
He handpicked unstable young people.
He told them to associate only with those who thought the way they did.
And then he filled their heads
with suspicion, paranoia, hate and violence.
Prepare for war. Destroy traitors.
Violence is necessary.
Hate Jews,
African-Americans, gay people.
Hate is your friend. Embrace it.
And he expects us to believe that he didn't intend them to be violent?
That he couldn't foresee somebody might get killed?
Who's he kidding?
The First Amendment protects words that persuade.
It doesn't protect words that incite.
That's what Mr. Willis did.
That's why it's called murder.
Mr. Foreman, have you reached verdicts as to both defendants?
Yes, Your Honor, we have.
As to the defendant Derek Harland,
on the sole count of the indictment, murder in the second degree,
how do you find?
We find the defendant guilty.
As to the defendant Thomas Willis,
on the sole count of the indictment, murder in the second degree,
how do you find?
We find the defendant guilty.
I don't see the Willis conviction surviving an appeal.
The worse thing about this is, there's plenty more where Willis came from.
If I thought we could stop hate with one prosecution or one law,
I'd be a fool. Yeah.
But you'd be my kind of fool.