Notable cases
The Southern Poverty Law Center has initiated a number of civil cases seeking injunctive relief and monetary awards on behalf of its clients. The SPLC has said it does not accept any portion of monetary judgements.[30][31] Dees and the SPLC "have been credited with devising innovative legal ways to cripple hate groups, including seizing their assets."[32] However, this has led to criticism from some civil libertarians, who contend that the SPLC's tactics chill free speech and set legal precedents that could be applied against activist groups which are not hate groups.[18] The SPLC has also filed suits related to the conditions of incarceration for adults and juveniles.
Alabama legislature
An early SPLC case was Sims v. Amos (consolidated with Nixon v. Brewer) in which the U.S. District Court for the Middle of Alabama ordered the state legislature to reapportion its election system. The result of the decision, which was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, was that 15 black legislators were elected in 1974.[33]
Vietnamese fishermen
In 1981, the SPLC took Ku Klux Klan leader Louis Beam's Klan-associated militia, the Texas Emergency Reserve (TER),[34] to court to stop racial harassment and intimidation of Vietnamese shrimpers in and around Galveston Bay.[35] The Klan's actions against approximately 100 Vietnamese shrimpers in the area included a cross burning,[36] sniper fire aimed at them, and arsonists burning their boats.[37]
In May 1981, U.S. District Court judge Gabrielle McDonald[38] issued a preliminary injunction against the Klan, requiring them to cease intimidating, threatening, or harassing the Vietnamese.[39] McDonald eventually found the TER and Beam liable for tortious interference, violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and of various civil rights statutes and thus permanently enjoined them against violence, threatening behavior, and other harassment of the Vietnamese shrimpers.[38] The SPLC also uncovered an obscure Texas law "that forbade private armies in that state."[40] McDonald found that Beam's organization violated it and hence ordered the TER to close its military training camp.[40]
White Patriot Party
In 1982, armed members of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Bobby Person, a black prison guard, and members of his family. They harassed and threatened others, including a white woman who had befriended blacks. In 1984, Person became the lead plaintiff in Person v. Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a lawsuit brought by the SPLC in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The harassment and threats continued during litigation and the court issued an order prohibiting any person from interfering with others inside the courthouse.[41] In January 1985, the court issued a consent order that prohibited the group's "Grand Dragon", Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., and his followers from operating a paramilitary organization, holding parades in black neighborhoods, and from harassing, threatening or harming any black person or white persons who associated with black persons. Subsequently, the court dismissed the plaintiffs' claim for damages.[41]
Within a year, the court found Miller and his followers, now calling themselves the White Patriot Party, in criminal contempt for violating the consent order. Miller was sentenced to six months in prison followed by a three-year probationary period, during which he was banned from associating with members of any racist group such as the White Patriot Party. Miller refused to obey the terms of his probation. He made underground "declarations of war" against Jews and the federal government before being arrested again. Found guilty of weapons violations, he went to federal prison for three years.[42][43]
United Klans of America
In 1987, SPLC won a case against the United Klans of America for the lynching of Michael Donald, a black teenager in Mobile, Alabama.[44] The SPLC used an unprecedented legal strategy of holding an organization responsible for the crimes of individual members to help produce a $7 million judgement for the victim's mother.[44] The verdict forced United Klans of America into bankruptcy. Its national headquarters was sold for approximately $52,000 to help satisfy the judgement.[45] In 1987, five members of a Klan offshoot, the White Patriot Party, were indicted for stealing military weaponry and plotting to kill Dees.[46] The SPLC has since successfully used this precedent to force numerous Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups into bankruptcy.[47]
The Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery
White Aryan Resistance
On November 13, 1988, in Portland, Oregon, three white supremacist members of East Side White Pride and White Aryan Resistance (WAR) fatally assaulted Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian man who came to the United States to attend college.[48] In October 1990, the SPLC won a civil case on behalf of Seraw's family against WAR's operator Tom Metzger and his son, John, for a total of $12.5 million.[49][50] The Metzgers declared bankruptcy, and WAR went out of business. The cost of work for the trial was absorbed by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as well as the SPLC.[51] As of August 2007, Metzger still makes payments to Seraw's family.[52][needs update]
Church of the Creator
In May 1991, Harold Mansfield, a black U.S. Navy war veteran, was murdered by George Loeb, a member of the neo-Nazi "Church of the Creator" (now called the Creativity Movement).[53] SPLC represented the victim's family in a civil case and won a judgement of $1 million from the church in March 1994.[54] The church transferred ownership to William Pierce, head of the National Alliance, to avoid paying money to Mansfield's heirs.[55] The SPLC filed suit against Pierce for his role in the fraudulent scheme and won an $85,000 judgement against him in 1995.[56][57] The amount was upheld on appeal and the money was collected prior to Pierce's death in 2002.[57]
Christian Knights of the KKK
The SPLC won a $37.8 million verdict on behalf of Macedonia Baptist Church, a 100-year-old black church in Manning, South Carolina, against two Ku Klux Klan chapters and five Klansmen (Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and Invisible Empire, Inc.) in July 1998.[58] The money was awarded stemming from arson convictions; these Klan units burned down the historic black church in 1995.[59] Morris Dees told the press, "If we put the Christian Knights out of business, what's that worth? We don't look at what we can collect. It's what the jury thinks this egregious conduct is worth that matters, along with the message it sends." According to The Washington Post the amount is the "largest-ever civil award for damages in a hate crime case."[60]
Aryan Nations
In September 2000, the SPLC won a $6.3 million judgement against the Aryan Nations (AN) from an Idaho jury who awarded punitive and compensatory damages to a woman and her son who were attacked by Aryan Nations guards.[6] The lawsuit stemmed from the July 1998 attack when security guards at the Aryan Nations compound near Hayden Lake in northern Idaho, shot at Victoria Keenan and her son.[61] Bullets struck their car several times, causing the car to crash. An Aryan Nations member held the Keenans at gunpoint.[61] As a result of the judgement, Richard Butler turned over the 20-acre (81,000 m2) compound to the Keenans, who sold the property to a philanthropist. He donated the land to North Idaho College, which designated the area as a "peace park".[62]
Ten Commandments monument
See also: Roy Moore § Ten Commandments monument controversy
In 2002, the SPLC and the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit (Glassroth v. Moore) against Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore for placing a display of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. Moore, who had final authority over what decorations were to be placed in the Alabama State Judicial Building's Rotunda, had installed a 5,280 pound (2,400 kg) granite block, three feet wide by three feet deep by four feet tall, of the Ten Commandments late at night without the knowledge of any other court justice. After defying several court rulings, Moore was eventually removed from the court and the Supreme Court justices had the monument removed from the building.[63]
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Billy Ray Johnson
The SPLC brought a civil suit on behalf of Billy Ray Johnson, a black, mentally disabled man, who was severely beaten by four white males in Texas and left bleeding in a ditch, suffering permanent injuries. In 2007, Johnson was awarded $9 million in damages by a Linden, Texas jury.[66][67] At a criminal trial, the four men were convicted of assault and received sentences of 30 to 60 days in county jail.[68][69]
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Mississippi correctional institutions
Further information: Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility and East Mississippi
Correctional Facility
Together with the ACLU National Prison Project, the SPLC filed a class-action suit in November 2010 against the owner/operators of the private Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Leake County, Mississippi, and the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDC). They charged that conditions, including under-staffing and neglect of medical care, produced numerous and repeated abuses of youthful prisoners, high rates of violence and injury, and that one prisoner suffered brain damage because of inmate-on-inmate attacks.[73] A federal civil rights investigation was undertaken by the United States Department of Justice. In settling the suit, Mississippi ended its contract with GEO Group in 2012. Additionally, under the court decree, the MDC moved the youthful offenders to state-run units. In 2012, Mississippi opened a new youthful offender unit at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County.[74] The state also agreed to not subject youthful offenders to solitary confinement and a court monitor conducted regular reviews of conditions at the facility.[75]
Also with the ACLU Prison Project, the SPLC filed a class-action suit in May 2013 against Management and Training Corporation (MTC), the for-profit operator of the private East Mississippi Correctional Facility, and the MDC.[76] Management and Training Corporation had been awarded a contract for this and two other facilities in Mississippi in 2012 following the removal of GEO Group. The suit charged failure of MTC to make needed improvements, and to maintain proper conditions and treatment for this special needs population of prisoners.[77] In 2015 the court granted the plaintiffs' motion for class certification.[78][needs update]
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Andrew Anglin and The Daily Stormer
In April 2017, the SPLC filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Tanya Gersh, accusing Andrew Anglin, publisher of the white supremacist website The Daily Stormer, of instigating an anti-Semitic harassment campaign against Gersh, a Whitefish, Montana, real estate agent.[83][84]
