White Supremacist Wants New Trial

A white supremacist has asked a federal judge to grant him a new trial in the murders of a Pope County family. Chevie Kehoe contends that his lawyer was ineffective in a 1999 trial at which Kehoe was convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. A federal appeals court unheld the convictions and sentence in 2002. But in a motion filed today in U-S District Court at Little Rock, Kehoe argues that he was subjected to an unsympathetic jury because of his lawyer`s strategy of seating black jurors. The jury was comprised of nine blacks and three whites. Kehoe said his lawyer allowed that despite the government`s portrayal of Kehoe as motivated primarily by white supremacist beliefs. Prosecutors said Kehoe robbed and murdered an Arkansas family as part of a group that plotted to set up a separate all-white nation in the Pacific Northwest. Kehoe also argues that he was wrongly convicted, claiming there was no organized group. He said there was no organized criminal enterprise for prosecutors to pursue, so federal prosecutors had no jurisdiction.