HAL TURNER'S CASE IS ABOUT TO HEAD TO THE JURY ONCE AGAIN

The defense in the Hal Turner re-trial has now rested and closing arguments were to begin this afternoon, which means quite possibly today or tomorrow we will have a verdict in his case. To be honest, we are just glad that this is coming to an end. A number of us have been dealing with Turner since the early nineties and this is definitely a chapter that has been long overdue to close. We are going to wait however to see how it ends before we opine on that ending, but in looking at how we have dealt with the Hal Turner case over the years, we have to admit our mistakes as well, particularly one of them. DLJ attended Friday’s court date and as has been the case, Turner’s mother wife and son were there to give him their support. Now Turner has gotten the brunt of the potshots from us as he should (especially considering the number of times he suggested violence towards us), but there was one point where we crossed the line into sending one of those potshots towards members of his family, namely Turner’s wife Phyllis. In an article we had written about a tussle with a Jersey City politician protesting outside his home and the July 16, 2006 trial that took place, we called Mrs. Turner, who testified in that trial, a “pig”. Actually we went further than that, but you get the idea. Family members are as a general rule off limits to us, unless of course they are involved in the same activities as the people we cover. Phyllis Turner on the witness stand as for the defense should not have been seen as being involved in her husband’s activites, but simply as someone who was a witness to what happened. A few of us within our little collective here took issue with the “pig” line back then, and we admit it was a low blow, but time goes by and such things fade from memory – but not if you were the one hurt by it. DLJ went to Mrs. Turner during a break in the trian and apologized to her, and we want to also make that apology to her here as well as to our readers who expect us to be above such things. Now this doesn’t mean that we won’t take our usual shots at folks. No, nothing’s changed there! We will simply be a bit more mindful of who deserves them and who doesn’t.

NorthJersey.com

BROOKLYN – Lawyers for ultra-right wing shock jock and one-time FBI informant Hal Turner rested their defense Monday after calling an agent from the FBI’s counter-terrorism unit about whether Turner had any intent to harm judges.

An agent, who is assigned to the FBI’s CT-4 domestic counter-terrorism and weapons of mass destruction squad in Newark, said he took part in the arrest of Turner at his North Bergen home last June for allegedly posting a threat against three Chicago judges on his radio show Internet blog.

Reviewing FBI reports in Turner’s confidential informant file, the agent testified that he had no information to suggest that Turner was a leader of an extremist organization or had any followers.

Prior to Turner’s arrest, the agent said the controversial talk-show host told agents, “I would not kill or harm the judges myself.”

In his blog, Turner wrote that three 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges “deserved to be killed” for upholding a local handgun law in Chicago and a suburb.

On cross-examination, the agent said that Turner acknowledged that he understood he could be criminally culpable if someone were to harm the judges based on what he wrote in his blog.

The agent said Turner then added, “It is not my intention to ever have someone harmed or killed. I use crude political hyperbole to blow off steam over issues that aggravate me.”

The government then put on one final witness before resting its case. FBI agent Joseph Raschke said Turner was closed as an informant in late March 2005 after postings relating to the murder of a Chicago judge’s mother and husband. Turner warned judges not to “screw around with pro-white groups because some of us are willing to kill and you can be gotten too.”

But Raschke conceded on cross that until this case, Turner was never charged with any crime for any statements he made, including comments on his blog and on national television shows that the Chicago judge was “worthy of death.”

Referring to an FBI memo from this period, defense lawyer Nishay Sanan asked the agent, “When it says the CI [confidential informant] operated within the guidelines of a privileged CI, that means the CI didn’t break any laws?”

U.S. Distict Judge Donald E. Walter interjected, “The document speaks for itself.”

During his on-again, off-again role as an FBI informant between 2003 and 2007, Turner provided intelligence on extremist white-power groups, including the Aryan Nation and the National Alliance. He was regarded as a valuable source, but ultimately closed as an informant because of “serious control” problems.

Closing arguments in the case will be delivered this afternoon.