Hate speech cases are hard to win. So police, prosecutors use workarounds to jail white extremists Simone Weichselbaum and Joseph Neff
Why not everything you say or tweet is protected under free speech
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Douglas Story’s white supremacist street cred was easy to find. He had a white pride tattoo and a neo-Nazi license plate. In extremist online forums he made ominous, N-word-filled posts about President Barack Obama, implying that the president should be shot. The Aryan Nations even booted Story from its website when he sought help for converting his AK-47 rifle into a fully automatic machine gun – a federal crime.
Douglas Story’s white supremacist street cred was easy to find. He had a white pride tattoo and a neo-Nazi license plate. In extremist online forums he made ominous, N-word-filled posts about President Obama: “If someone puts a 30.06 round into the base of his skull, huh ya think? The Aryan Nations even booted Story from its website when he sought help for converting his AK-47 rifle into a fully automatic machine gun a federal crime.
This article was published in partnership with USA TODAY.
But none of that factored into his 2012 sentencing after the FBI arrested him in Virginia for possession of that modified gun. A federal judge blocked prosecutors from discussing Story’s white supremacist views, because the First Amendment protects speech, no matter how offensive. Prosecutors could only focus on Story’s illegal weapon.
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