Associated Press | File 2002

Matthew Hale, the leader of the white supremacist group World Church of the Creator, was convicted in 2004 of soliciting a government informant to murder federal Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow of Chicago.

The Roanoke Times | File October

William A. White is charged with soliciting others to injure or threaten someone identified only as Juror A in the Matthew Hale trial.

From behind his computer screen, William A. White has called the Roanoke NAACP president a "n----- in need of lynching." He's written that Roanoke Times journalists should be dragged from their homes and hanged "1898 style in the Market Square." He's described himself as both the commander of a white supremacy movement and a depressed man with an urge to "kill, kill, kill."

Federal authorities have been investigating White's online ranting for more than a year now.

But the only charge against him so far comes from a federal grand jury in Chicago. Last week, White was indicted on a charge of encouraging violence against the foreman of a jury that in 2004 convicted a fellow white supremacist of soliciting the murder of a Chicago judge.

White's modus operandi -- posting on his Web site personal attacks on the juror along with his home address and telephone numbers -- is similar to what he's done with his Roanoke targets.

So how did a Sept. 11 post about the Chicago juror lead to the jailing of a neo-Nazi leader who, by most accounts, had managed to tiptoe along the boundary between free speech and illegal threats?

It seems that White picked a fight with the wrong person.

Although it appears he made no explicit threats, White's decision to target a juror exposes him to a charge of obstruction of justice, legal and First Amendment experts said in interviews last week.

"Even if it's not a threat, if it does cause a clear and present danger to the operation of the judicial system ... then that kind of speech can be proscribed," said Wat Hopkins, a communications law professor at Virginia Tech.

If someone tries to intimidate a juror, the thinking goes, that's a threat not just to an individual, but to an institution.

"Not to downplay the other threats at all," said Scott Sundby, a law professor at Washington and Lee University who specializes in criminal law and juries. "But if we can't count on people to serve as jurors and render their honest opinions without fear, the criminal justice system itself becomes endangered."

Technically, White is charged with soliciting others to injure or threaten someone identified only as Juror A. But a line in the indictment alleges that the solicitation was "on account of a verdict assented to by Juror A," citing an obstruction of justice law that deals with jury tampering.

"The government certainly has a plausible case" by taking such a tack, said Brian Levin, a California lawyer and criminal justice professor who heads the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

Even so, White -- who at a bond hearing last week described himself as a tabloid journalist who mixes satire with mockery -- may seek some protection under the First Amendment.

At the hearing in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, magistrate Judge Michael Urbanski said the charge against White raises some significant free speech implications.

"It is a very interesting legal issue as to whether the language used in this case constitutes a true threat," Urbanski said.

The judge cited two U.S. Supreme Court cases that might apply to White's case, which will be tried in federal court in Chicago.

One case involved a Vietnam War protester who declared during an antiwar rally in 1969 that he would not be drafted. "If they ever make me carry a rifle, the first man I want to get in my rifle sights is L.B.J.," he said, referring to then-President Lyndon Johnson.

The protester was convicted of threatening the president. The Supreme Court upheld the law but threw out the conviction, ruling that a "crude offensive" political statement is constitutionally protected free speech.

A second case cited by Urbanski goes to the issue of criminal incitement. In that case, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a Ku Klux Klansman who suggested during a cross burning that vengeance be taken against the government for suppressing the rights of whites.

The Klansman, Clarence Brandenburg, was convicted under an Ohio law that made it illegal to advocate a crime or violence as a means of accomplishing political reform.

In overturning that law, the court established a two-part standard for criminal incitement: The speech must be intended to incite imminent illegal actions, and it must be likely to produce such a result.

According to a written analysis by Levin, the Brandenburg decision provides significant protection to online extremists such as White, as long as they keep their advocacy abstract.

The indictment charging White does not cite an explicit threat. On Sept. 11, White posted to his Web site, overthrow.com, an article that read in part "Gay anti-racist [Juror A] was a juror who played a key role in convicting Matt Hale," according to the indictment.

Hale was convicted in 2004 of soliciting a government informant to murder federal Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow.

Federal prosecutors argued at the time that Hale was angry at the judge for ruling against him in a trademark infringement lawsuit over the name of his white supremacist organization. Hale was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Years later, White took up the cause of his fellow neo-Nazi, arguing on overthrow.com that Hale was railroaded by a jury made up of "homosexuals, Jews and Negroes."

By making the jury foreman's whereabouts known to an Internet audience that "at times engaged in acts of violence directed at non-whites," White intended for someone to act on the information, federal authorities contend.

Much of the seven-page indictment against White details other near-threats and death wishes against people whose activities would offend his neo-Nazi philosophies.

In one case, after posting the home address of author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, White appeared to be pleased that one of his followers assaulted the man.

"I can only say that I hope to inspire a hundred more young white people to sacrifice themselves for our collective racial whole," White wrote in a post that ended "Heil Hitler" on Feb. 21.

Federal prosecutors have also cited White's call to "Lynch the Jena 6," a reference to six black teenagers charged with assault in Jena, La., and an image posted to overthrow.com that puts presidential candidate Barack Obama in the cross hairs of an assassin's rifle.

"Does the government have the right to show these horrendous statements on the Web site?" Levin said. "Yes, if it is to establish a motive. But they won't have unbridled authority to throw everything in. They will have to connect it to how the Bill White movement operates."

But, he added, "We don't have to look at this in a vacuum."

"If a Mafioso calls someone and uses a code word, or says somebody might get 'whacked'... that could be construed as some kind of a threat or interference."

White, a 31-year-old landlord who calls himself the commander of the Roanoke-based American National Socialist Workers Party, was arrested Oct. 17. His attorney, William Cleaveland, said he plans to appeal Urbanski's decision to hold his client without bond. If that decision stands, White will be transferred to Chicago to await trial.

If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison,

In finding that White poses a danger to the community, Urbanski cited a post in which White wrote that he had developed an "intricate plot for the murder of about a score of Roanoke City's Negro nuisances and their annoying counterparts at The Roanoke Times."

Brenda Hale, the former NAACP president who was the target of White's "lynching" post, said she breathed a sigh of relief last week to learn that overthrow.com was down and White was in jail.

Hale said she worried about not just what White might do, but about his followers. "He had a direct effect on people who had hatefulness in their hearts," she said.

During the bond hearing, White attempted to convince Urbanski that he meant no harm to anyone, that his posts were nothing more than tabloid news full of "fantasy and half-truths and make-believe."

Over the past year, federal authorities have been monitoring White's online rants and making printouts. It's possible he could face additional charges; a federal grand jury in Roanoke has been hearing testimony, according to two sources not involved in the investigation but with personal knowledge of the proceedings.

Observers are watching closely to see what effect White's arrest might have on both the ANSWP and its leader, described by one hate watch group as perhaps "the loudest and most obnoxious neo-Nazi leader in America."

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama group that monitors hate groups, said White's arrest also could mark the end of an era. Other white supremacy groups, including Hale's World Church of the Creator, the National Alliance and the Aryan Nations, have all fallen on hard times in recent years.

As gratifying as that might be, Potok said, the danger is that the leaders of those organizations had been able, at least to some degree, to rein in illegal activity by their followers.

"It's worrying when you have a whole lot of angry white supremacists running around with no leader," Potok said.