Making his first appearance in a Chicago courtroom, neo-Nazi leader William A. White pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a charge of encouraging violence against a juror.

The head of the Roanoke-based American National Socialist Workers Party, White is charged with using his Web site to target the foreman of a Chicago jury that convicted a fellow white supremacist of plotting to kill a federal judge.

White's words are being read two ways:

Federal prosecutors say that by posting the juror's home address and telephone numbers on a Web site frequented by white supremacists, some of them known to be violent, White meant the man harm.

Defense lawyers say that White was simply exercising his free speech rights, airing political views that were so racist and inflammatory that the government set out to silence him.

"This case is basically the United States of America versus the First Amendment," said Nishay Sanan, one of two Chicago attorneys that White has hired to represent him.

In a telephone interview after White's arraignment Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, Sanan said he expects free speech issues will play a key role in White's trial, which is expected to be held sometime next year.

White testified during a bond hearing last month in Roanoke that his now-defunct Web site, overthrow.com, was nothing more than a tabloid news outlet. White acknowledged that some of his writings were disturbing but said he never intended for his words to cause harm to anyone.

On Sept. 11, White took up the cause of fellow racist Matthew Hale, posting personal information about the "gay, anti-racist" juror who played a key role in Hale's conviction, according to a grand jury indictment.

Hale was convicted in 2004 of soliciting the murder a federal judge in Chicago who ruled against him in a trademark infringement case involving the name of his former white supremacy movement, the World Church of the Creator.

In court filings, federal authorities have sought to put White's postings about the Hale juror into the broader context of overthrow.com, which offered a daily diatribe of racial insults, veiled threats and death wishes before a search by FBI agents shut it down last month.

For example, the indictment cites a September 2007 posting headlined "Lynch the Jena 6" -- a reference to six black teenagers whose arrest on assault charges triggered a major civil rights march in Jena, La.

Also included in court documents is an image that appeared on overthrow.com that shows then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in the cross hairs of an assassin's rifle, along with the words: "Kill This N-----?"

White, 31, was arrested in Roanoke last month. A magistrate judge ordered him held without bond on Oct. 22, finding that his online threats and rants made him a danger to the community.

At his hearing Wednesday, White learned that he will get one more shot at pretrial freedom. Judge William Hibbler scheduled a bond hearing for Dec. 5, according to Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago.