## Facts

- Matthew Hale led a white-supremacist organization and was convicted of obstructing justice and soliciting the murder of a federal judge.
- William White founded and provided content for a website affiliated with another white-supremacist organization.
- After Hale’s conviction, White posted on his website that everyone associated with the Hale trial “deserved assassination.”
- White published names of people involved in the Hale prosecution, including federal agents and prosecutors.
- White later posted a photograph of the jury foreperson from Hale’s trial and added extensive personal information about the juror, including the juror’s name, birthdate, address, and multiple phone numbers.
- A federal grand jury indicted White for soliciting a crime of violence against the juror.
- White moved to dismiss the superseding indictment, arguing that the charged conduct was protected speech under the First Amendment.
- The district court granted the motion and dismissed the superseding indictment.
- The United States appealed the dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether the First Amendment barred prosecution under the federal solicitation statute based on White’s online posts identifying and targeting the jury foreperson.
2. Whether the superseding indictment sufficiently alleged the elements of solicitation of a crime of violence such that dismissal at the pleading stage was improper.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of the superseding indictment and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that speech constituting solicitation of a crime of violence is not protected by the First Amendment.
- The court concluded that the indictment, taken as true at the dismissal stage, adequately alleged that White intended to induce others to commit violence against the juror and used the website posts to encourage that result.
- The court emphasized that whether White’s statements, in context, amounted to criminal solicitation was a matter for trial rather than a basis for pretrial dismissal on First Amendment grounds.

## Legal Principles

- The First Amendment does not protect speech that is integral to criminal conduct, including solicitation to commit a crime of violence.
- To prove solicitation under federal law, the government must show (1) intent that another person commit a violent felony and (2) a command, request, or effort to persuade another person to commit that crime.
- On a motion to dismiss an indictment, courts generally accept the indictment’s factual allegations as true; dismissal is appropriate only when the indictment fails to state an offense or is unconstitutional on its face.
- General political advocacy, even when it praises violence in the abstract, differs from communications aimed at inducing a specific violent act; context and intent determine on which side the charged speech falls.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit held that the district court erred by dismissing the superseding indictment on First Amendment grounds because solicitation of a crime of violence is outside First Amendment protection and the indictment sufficiently alleged that White intended, through his online posts and disclosure of the juror’s personal information, to induce others to commit violence against the jury foreperson; the case was therefore reversed and remanded for further proceedings.


United States v. White, 610 F.3d 956 (2010)