APca 06/17 1626 Butler SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- The Rev. Richard Butler, who remains under m

APca 06/17 1626 Butler


   SPOKANE, Wash.  (AP)  -- The Rev.  Richard Butler, who remains
under medical care following two surgeries last month,  wants  to
be  tried  on  federal  sedition  charges  in  Idaho  instead  of
Arkansas.

   Butler's attorney, Everett D.  Hofmeister  of  Coeur  d'Alene,
Idaho,  filed  a  dozen  motions,  including  one seeking a trial
separate from 13 co-defendants.

   Butler, leader of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian  (Aryan
Nations),  is  also  asking  for  access  to  secret  grand  jury
transcripts.

   Butler wants to know if the FBI tapped his telephone or  those
of   other   white   supremacists   during   a   lengthy  federal
investigation  that  resulted  in  the  return  of  a   seditious
conspiracy indictment against 14 defendants in late April in Fort
Smith, Ark.

   Hofmeister  said Butler needs to have "sufficient knowledge of
the facts concerning the alleged conspiracy" in order  to  defend
himself.

   Hofmeister  said  Butler  was seeking a separate trial because
charges   against    other    defendants,    including    planned
assassinations  of  a  judge  and  an  FBI agent, would prejudice
Butler's case.

   Hofmeister recently filed the motions in U.S.  District  Court
in Fort Smith.

   The  attorney noted in an affidavit that Butler, 69, underwent
quadruple heart bypass surgery  and  carotid  artery  surgery  in
early May, and is still under the care of physicians in Spokane.

   Hofmeister  is challenging jurisdiction because the indictment
contends the conspiracy to overthrow the United States government
was allegedly concocted in 1983 at the Aryan  Nations  church  in
northern Idaho.

   "The  jurisdiction  question  is  one  of the most important,"
Hofmeister said Tuesday. "If nothing happened  in  Arkansas,  how
come a grand jury down there returned an indictment?"

   The trial should be moved to Idaho, Hofmeister said in seeking
to  question  prospective  jurors,  because  of an "atmosphere of
hostility and prejudice" against Butler in Arkansas.

   No date has been set by  U.S.  District  Judge  Morris  "Buzz"
Arnold to  hear  arguments  on  the  pretrial motions.  The judge
could rule on them without a hearing.

   The trial had been  set  for  July  6,  but  was  indefinitely
postponed  because  of  a  legal  problem  involving three of the
defendants.

   Michael Fitzhugh, U.S.  Attorney  in  Arkansas,  has  said  he
doesn't  want  to  proceed with the trial until all 14 defendants
can be tried together.

   Butler's defense motions cite various  arguments  against  the
government's case.

   For  example,  they  allege  the  grand jury that returned the
sedition indictment was  misled  and  deceived  by  hearsay  from
witnesses  and  given "conflicting facts not relevant or material
to the charges."

   For those reasons, a motion says, "grounds  may  exist  for  a
motion to dismiss the indictment against Butler."

   Another  motion  asks  the  court  to  order the Department of
Justice to disclose the identities of  "all  informants  who  are
participants  in  the  alleged crimes charged in the indictment."
It also  seeks  disclosure  of  any  promises  of  immunity  from
prosecution or leniency to cooperating witnesses.

   Hofmeister  noted that Butler is alleged to have taken part in
only seven of  the  125  acts  that  were  part  of  the  alleged
conspiracy,  and  is  named  in  only  one  of four counts in the
indictment.

   Butler's accompanying affidavit noted that Fort Smith is 2,000
miles from his home near Hayden Lake.

   No matter the trial's  outcome,  Butler  said,  the  resulting
expenses "will totally absorb" all resources he and his wife have
accumulated.

   
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