BITTER AMERICAN'S STORMFRONT POSTINGS RULED INADMISSIBLE IN TRIAL

Dick Poplawski, the Pittsburgh-area bonehead who killed three police officers just a few months after conservatives bitched about a DHS report noting right-wing extremists to be a threat, is going to go on trial this month, and it was ruled Friday that his Stormfront postings can come up in trial. Eh, that’s no biggie, really. That happens all the time. The prosecution is trying to prove that he committed the crime, and the argument that has stood is that his racist stances on that never really figured in. Still, it’s a case that should give a lot of conservatives – at least the ones with a conscience – some reason to pause. When then-Presidential Candidate Obama said in 2008 that there was a segment of Pennsylvania that were bitter and clung to their guns and religion, the conservatives cried foul. Poplawski is part of that segment. And as we said a minute ago, the DHS report that singled out right-wing extremists prompted conservatives to get all hot and bothered again. Then not only this shooting occured, but four other killings by right-wing extremists took place within the following few weeks, the Minuteman home invasion in Arizona that killed a HIspanic 9-year old girl and her father, the shooting death in Wichita, Kansas of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, and the Holocaust Museum shooting two years ago Friday. Still, not pointing this out to the jury now isn’t anything to fret over. It will be if we don’t make clear the connections outside the courtroom though.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The prosecution trying the case against Richard Poplawski, the Stanton Heights man accused of killing three police officers, will not be allowed to use his racist online rants when his trial begins later this month.

But they could be used in the death penalty portion of the trial if Mr. Poplawski is convicted.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey A. Manning ruled Friday that 41 pages of material from the website Stormfront — popular among white supremacists — will not be permitted to be heard by the jury.

At a pretrial hearing on the matter, defense attorney William Brennan said he didn’t believe that any of the comments made by his client related to the charges against him.

Mr. Poplawski is accused of killing Officers Eric G. Kelly, Paul J. Sciullo II and Stephen J. Mayhle on April 4, 2009, when they went to his mother’s home in Stanton Heights, answering a call for a domestic dispute.

“Looking at the 41 pages, it’s not relevant in any way, shape or form regarding motive in the deaths of three police officers,” Mr. Brennan said. “There’s not any actual threat to any racial group … or toward the police in the 41 pages.”

Judge Manning told assistant district attorney Lisa Pellegrini that he didn’t see the relevance either.

“Even if Mr. Poplawski harbored racist or anti-Semitic views, what does that have to do with this case?” he asked.

The judge said he would allow the postings to be used in the penalty phase of the case should Mr. Poplawski be convicted of first-degree murder. In that phase, it could come into play to rebut evidence presented by the defense about Mr. Poplawski’s character.

The trial is scheduled to begin June 20.