TURNER'S PROSECUTORS WANT HIS TIES TO FEDS SQUASHED DURING RETRIAL

Federal prosecutors in Hal Turner’s retrial want his ass on the stand this time. Last November, blame for Turner’s antics over the past few years was shifted to the FBI that hired him as an informant, and with Turner himself not calling witnesses, the end result was a mistrial. This time, prosecutors don’t want any mention of his time with the FBI. Given how heavy the involvement was, we are not sure if this is going to fly, but we will see. Turner’s retrial begins again on March 1, and we will be there as we were last time. But after the last go around, this promises to be damned interesting. The FBI were the prosecution’s witnesses, not Turner’s. They did however have other witnesses that they didn’t use, so we shall see where it goes. They are possibly going to take a page from the successful prosecution of Bill White, let the victims speak for themselves and let the jury decide that way. Even that was met with mixed results. Eh, we will see next month, we suppose.

Star-Ledger

Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to ban right-wing blogger Hal Turner from revealing to a jury he was an FBI informant in a retrial for allegedly threatening three federal judges in Chicago, a report in NorthJersey.com said.
Prosecutors said allowing argument about his status as an informant would just distract the jury, but his defense said he was trained to make statements similar to the ones charged as a threat in the case, according to the report. A judge declared a mistrial last December in the case against the New Jersey blogger. Prosecutors had argued that Turner knew his Internet tirade, which insisted the judges “must die,” could provoke violence by members of his radical audience. The defense likened Turner to a “shock jock” and argued he was expressing an opinion protected by the First Amendment.