Dallas Times Herald
January 4, 1990 (A18)

Skinheads' attorneys seek change of venue in trial

By Alan Van Zelfden
of the Times Herald Staff

Attorneys representing five avowed members of a local white
supremacist group charged with intimidating minorites have
asked that the upcoming trial be moved out of Dallas.

"We think there has been a lot of publicity regarding this
case, and all of it has been negative," defense attorney Allen
Greenspan said Wednesday. "We will be unable to find an
impartial jury."

In a motion filed before U.S. District Judge Barefoot Sanders,
defense attorneys claim that 41 newspaper articles published
in Dallas since 1979 reported violence perpetrated by
so-called skinheads.

The U.S. Justice Department selected Dallas in February as the
site for the nation's first major prosecution aimed at the
heart of the white supremacist movement, which increasingly
has exported racial hatred across the country.

Five local youths -- Sean Christian Tarrant, John Lance
Jordan, Michael Lewish Lawrence, Daniel Alvis Wood and
Christopher Barry Greer -- were indicted in September on
charges of intimidating blacks in a Dallas park. Each has
pleaded innocent and is scheduled to stand trial Feb. 20.

The defense attorneys, all court-appointed, also filed a
motion asking Sanders to approve spending $5,000 in federal
funds to commission a poll so they could prove that news
reports of violence by white supremacists has tainted public
opinion.

In denying the request, Sanders said: "Defendants have not
shown, nor is it likely they could show, that the effect of
pretrial publicity ... has anything to do with the
presentation of a substantive defense..."

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