CdA drops charges in littering case

COEUR d’ALENE — The Aryan Nations will continue to distribute its literature across North Idaho and Eastern Washington, one member said Wednesday.

And prosecuting attorneys said nothing can be done legally to prevent it.

The city’s legal team dismissed littering charges against three Aryan Nations members for distributing pro-white literature across Coeur d’Alene yards during the summer.

The misdemeanor charges were dropped Dec. 3, Deputy City Attorney Anna Eckhart said Wednesday, because the fliers weren’t any different than any other political hand out — therefore perfectly legal to distribute.

“Basically, we reviewed the case law and did not feel we could make a good faith argument that these fliers were anything but them exercising their right to free speech,” she said.

Paul Mullet, 45 at the time, and Kevin McGurre, 27, were given misdemeanor citations for littering in August. Todd Weston, 31, was given a citation for aiding a misdemeanor.

The fliers the three Athol men were tossing from a truck had a picture of a caucasian woman on it and stated: “Love Your White Race.”

They were placed in plastic bags weighted with a rocks.

“That doesn’t constitute hate,” Mullet said of the church’s message. “How is that a message of hate?”

Another flier had a photo of the Statue of Liberty with a Jewish star in the background, according to police reports.

Police caught up to the three men on S. 14th Street, near Young Avenue, after multiple reports by citizens. The city’s police department had fielded several months worth of complaints on the literature by the time the three were ticketed.

Police reports state the three men were cooperative during the traffic stop, and explained to officers they were “exercising freedom of speech rights according to the law.”

The men had two guns, with permits, and a folded knife with them, reports state.

News of the dismissed charges didn’t come as a surprise to the members, who said they plan to increase their circulation effort across North Idaho and into Washington.

“We’re going to continue to spread them, spread them frequently, and as a matter of fact we’re going to be upping them because of the vindication,” Mullet said Wednesday, listing Coeur d’Alene, Bayview, Sandpoint and Hayden as targeted destinations.

“Spokane and Spokane Valley will get hit again,” he said. “We’re going to show them we’re still here and that legally there is nothing they can do.”

He said the group, Aryan Nations Church of Yahweh, has up to 30,000 of the fliers they will be giving out.

Yahweh is a name for the Old Testament God as translated from Hebrew. Mullet would not say how many members the church has, only that the group was always aware of its legal right to distribute literature.

“It proves a point that there are still constitutional rights in America,” he said.

Eckhard classified the literature similar to campaign brochures or advertisements. They did not threaten any other creed, color or religion, which could have made them prosecutable.

“The case law is very protective of this kind of activity whether it’s commercial speech, political speech or religious speech,” she said.

Mullet called the police’s handling of the non-offense “unnecessary.”

Each charge carried up to 180 days in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

Mullet also denounced the three hate messages spread across Coeur d’Alene recently and said his group didn’t have anything to do with them.

Since September, a noose was left on the porch of the Spokane home of Rachel Dolezal, the education director at Coeur d’Alene’s Human Rights Education Institute; a swastika sticker was left on the door of the Human Rights Education Institute; and last week, Haitham Joudeh, a Coeur d’Alene resident of Middle Eastern heritage, had his truck vandalized and spray painted with two swastikas and a racial slur.

“None of what we do is hateful or derogatory,” Mullet said, adding the church’s pro-white stance shouldn’t be viewed as an aggressive message toward other races. “That’s not what we’re about.”

“We’re intelligent. We know our laws and we’re abiding by our laws,” he added. “We did nothing wrong. It’s a political message and we will continue to do it.”