White Supremacist Gets Life Term
May 12, 1999 - 0:0
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas An Arkansas jury sentenced a white supremacist to life imprisonment on Monday for murder, kidnapping and conspiring to form a racist all-white republic in the U.S. Pacific northwest. Chevie Kehoe, 26, was one of two men convicted last week of multiple counts of murder and kidnapping in connection with a crime spree across several states. The sentencing hearing for his partner, Daniel Lewis Lee, begins on Tuesday. A jury of nine blacks and three whites rejected the death penalty for Kehoe. They found five mitigating circumstances that prevented them from imposing the death penalty that prosecutors had sought.
In a note to the judge made public in court, the jury said the mitigating factors included testimony that Kehoe's extremist political and racial views were instilled by his parents from an early age and that his father had encouraged him to commit some of the crimes. Kehoe showed no reaction when the jury's decision was read out. "We tried to get him to accept the possibility of a worst-case scenario but he has always insisted in his innocence," John Hall, one of the defense attorneys for Hall and Lee, told reporters.
Hall said he expected to appeal the life prison term and added that he was relieved that his client did not face execution by lethal injection in an Arkansas prison. "It's so much easier to appeal without the pressure of a death sentence," he said. Prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty against Lee at his sentencing hearing, which begins on Tuesday. Kehoe, of Colville, Washington, and Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, were charged with crimes in Arkansas, Ohio, Washington and Idaho. They were tried in federal court in Arkansas because the worst crimes occurred there.
The pair were convicted of engaging in a two-year crime rampage aimed at financing a breakaway "Aryan nation" in the U.S. Pacific northwest, including burglarizing the home of Arkansas gun dealer William Mueller. They later returned to the residence and kidnapped and murdered Mueller, his wife and their 8-year-old daughter. (Reuter)
In a note to the judge made public in court, the jury said the mitigating factors included testimony that Kehoe's extremist political and racial views were instilled by his parents from an early age and that his father had encouraged him to commit some of the crimes. Kehoe showed no reaction when the jury's decision was read out. "We tried to get him to accept the possibility of a worst-case scenario but he has always insisted in his innocence," John Hall, one of the defense attorneys for Hall and Lee, told reporters.
Hall said he expected to appeal the life prison term and added that he was relieved that his client did not face execution by lethal injection in an Arkansas prison. "It's so much easier to appeal without the pressure of a death sentence," he said. Prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty against Lee at his sentencing hearing, which begins on Tuesday. Kehoe, of Colville, Washington, and Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, were charged with crimes in Arkansas, Ohio, Washington and Idaho. They were tried in federal court in Arkansas because the worst crimes occurred there.
The pair were convicted of engaging in a two-year crime rampage aimed at financing a breakaway "Aryan nation" in the U.S. Pacific northwest, including burglarizing the home of Arkansas gun dealer William Mueller. They later returned to the residence and kidnapped and murdered Mueller, his wife and their 8-year-old daughter. (Reuter)