In April, shortly after the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, The Federalist explained here that the indictment was probably just a start and should be regarded as the tip of the iceberg. An active investigation continued, we wrote, and more legal developments should be expected. That was correct: A grand jury just returned a more detailed superseding indictment alleging that the SPLC has been pouring money into the groups it purports to oppose.
Since that educated guess turned out to be correct, here’s the next one: This new version of the indictment is also probably the tip of the iceberg, and there are still more developments to come. You’re probably going to wait a long time to find out what happens to the SPLC, and there are reasons to expect delay from both sides of the pending criminal case.
Start with the prosecution, which will be the easy part. Alleging that the SPLC created fake businesses to open bank accounts and transfer money in the name of those nonexistent entities, the new indictment also contains explicit allegations about details like the creation of fake business records. If federal prosecutors have fake payroll records and checks from businesses that didn’t really exist, they’ll want to know who, specifically, created those documents. Even more clearly than the first indictment, the superseding indictment suggests the possibility of future charges against individual SPLC employees and informants.
William Byrnes, a professor at Texas A&M University School of Law who writes about bank regulations and anti-money laundering laws, echoed that point this week in a discussion with The Federalist: “My gut tells me that further indictments will be filed as the case progresses, based on previous cases the government has brought, as it uncovers more information useful to its case and/or to address deficiencies.”
So expect more from federal prosecutors. They have additional work to do.
Then look at the defense. Since the Southern Poverty Law Center was first indicted on April 21, the nine defense lawyers from three law firms that represent the organization have filed three separate motions challenging the prosecution. Alleging ethical and procedural failures in a series of memoranda and exhibits that now stretch to 449 pages, the defense has attacked everything but the substance of the charges: supposedly dishonest government statements to media, supposedly vindictive prosecution, and now what’s alleged to be an improper early release of a superseding indictment that was filed this week.
On Thursday, three more lawyers asked the court to be recognized to file an amicus brief on behalf of the Society for the Rule of Law, which will bring the count to twelve lawyers filing briefs to challenge the prosecution.
With that number in mind, consider how long it typically takes to get a normal criminal case alleging multiple felonies to trial in federal courts. You can find court data here, in data tables that are unpleasant to parse, but a simpler approach is to see what defense lawyers tell their clients: “Federal courts typically set trial dates early — within 12-18 months of indictment — and they actually stick to them.”
A complex case with a long list of felonies can easily take a year and a half to get to trial, but it can take longer with procedural delays like extended legal combat over pre-trial motions. And we’re having a presidential election in two and a half years, after which we may have a president and an attorney general who are Democrats.
If a trial date can be pushed beyond the next inauguration, the SPLC might beat the charges simply by getting a friendlier administration.
The SPLC “has over $750M in assets,” Byrnes told The Federalist, “allowing it the best litigation team money can buy.” With money for a giant and aggressive legal team, he concluded, “delay may work.”
But a legal strategy of delay also threatens to extend the political crisis for the SPLC, as a years-long courtroom battle keeps generating headlines about allegations that an anti-hate organization paid for Klan robes and cross-burning materials and kept Klansmen and neo-Nazis on a shadow payroll.
As Byrnes asked The Federalist this week, “What are the outcomes?” The SPLC says explicitly in its own defense that it has been paying extremist groups for years so it can infiltrate them and break them up, but toward what end? As Byrnes noted, “SPLC has no prosecutorial authority. The Klan and Nazi groups seem to be doing just fine.”
An extended legal controversy might serve the SPLC in federal court and damage it in the court of public opinion. How all of that ends is a question that will have to wait for an answer, which probably isn’t coming soon.
The Federalist has repeatedly sent questions to the SPLC’s defense lawyers by email, but has never received a response.
