Top Gun Rights Group Backs White Supremacist’s Supreme Court Case
Samuel Johnson isn’t exactly a lawyer’s dream client. He’s a white supremacist with a lengthy rap sheet who a couple years ago was accused of plotting an attack on a Mexican consulate. He ended up drawing a 15-year prison term on a gun charge, and his case is now on his way to the US Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear a challenge to his sentence. Johnson has won the vocal backing of a top gun rights group, but as his case moves forward, it may eventually draw support from some liberals and civil libertarians who oppose harsh mandatory minimum sentences.
Johnson’s story started back in 2010, when he caught the attention of the FBI, not long after he’d started organizing anti-immigration rallies in Minnesota. Initially a member of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group, Johnson quit to start his own outfit, the Aryan Liberation Movement. He allegedly planned to support the group by counterfeiting money.
During a domestic terrorism investigation, Johnson, who has a long criminal record, told an undercover informant he’d manufactured napalm, silencers, and other explosives for the new group, and was amassing a stockpile of semi-automatic weapons and ammo. According to court documents, Johnson and another man, Joseph Thomas, were planning an attack on the Mexican consulate in Minneapolis for May 1, 2012. Law enforcement swooped in before the attack could be launched. Thomas was arrested on drug charges and ultimately pleaded guilty to a meth possession charge and sentenced to ten years in prison.
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