Court of Appeals Rules Defendant's Prior Conviction for Racially-Charged Crime is Admissible in Hate Crimes Prosecution

CINCINNATI – Benjamin C. Glassman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, announced an opinion filed today in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit related to the District’s criminal case involving Samuel Whitt.

Whitt, 42, of Cincinnati, has been charged federally with criminal interference with federal fair housing rights and attempted arson.  In today’s opinion, the Court of Appeals reversed a prior ruling by the U.S. District Court, which would have prohibited the United States from introducing evidence regarding Whitt’s previous state misdemeanor conviction involving spray-painted racial epithets.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment in May 2017, alleging Whitt destroyed a rental home owned by an inter-racial couple in Price Hill in November 2016. According to the indictment, Whitt broke into the rental home and spray-painted the walls with messages including “die n****r” and “white power,” as well as images of swastikas. Whitt also allegedly poured quick-drying concrete into the bathroom drains and toilet; stabbed a knife into the floor; removed plumbing traps from the sinks and left the water running; turned on the gas stove in the upstairs kitchen, poured paint into the burners, and attempted to remove the smoke detector above the stove.

On the eve of trial, the District Court ruled to exclude evidence of Whitt’s prior misdemeanor crimes that involved the spray-painting of racial epithets on apartment buildings, cars and part of a church. The United States Attorney’s Office then appealed that decision.

The Court of Appeals overturned that decision today, ruling that the evidence is admissible to show that Whitt acted with racial animus in committing the 2016 crime.

“This office is committed to prosecuting hate crimes to the fullest extent of the law. This appeal is an example of that,” U.S. Attorney Glassman said.

U.S. Attorney Glassman commended the appellate work of Assistant United States Attorney C. Mitchell Hendy and Appellate Chief Mary Beth Young and the assistance of Erin Flynn with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Assistant United States Attorneys Megan Gaffney and Kyle Healey are prosecuting the criminal case.

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