Attorneys defending defendants on political fringes face personal attacks

Any attorney who signs on to defend one of the four California men charged this week with rioting in connection to last year’s Unite the Right rally might need to have a thick skin. They could receive harassing phone calls and see their face posted on flyers next to headlines like “Nazi lawyer” and “scumbag attorney.”

Just ask Michelle L. Spaulding, who was greeted with posters outside the Sacramento court for weeks proclaiming her the “new Nazi lawyer in town” after agreeing to represent white supremacist William Scott Planer against assault charges.

Dan M. Siegel faced similar harassment from far-right groups when he defended Eric Clanton, a leftist Antifa protester, in an assault case related to a clash in Berkeley.

“I received telephone messages in which people called me a ‘Jew shyster lawyer,’” said the partner with Siegel, Yee & Brunner in Oakland. “Someone said, ‘We hope you go to prison with Clanton, so you can both be raped.’”

They aren’t alone. As white supremacist and Antifa groups clash at rallies and online, attorneys around the county are getting caught in the crossfire.

One striking thing about these ideologically opposed sides is how much they rely on the same tactics — and the extent to which campaigns to shame attorneys are just an extension to the methods they use on each other.

These include online shaming, phone and email campaigns targeting a person’s employer, and doxing, a term for exposing personal information to intimidate someone. The Southern Poverty Law Center has said doxing attacks have often hit the wrong individuals or driven people involved in the far right to go underground, making it harder to track their activities.

These practices are difficult to stop in part due to the First Amendment and free speech laws. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 also protects websites from liability for posts by third parties. Some attorneys say this has helped create a space for doxing and online attacks.

Groups on both sides have crowdsourced photos and videos of violent clashes in order to identify perpetrators on the other side, sometimes relying on tattoos or other features when a person’s face is covered.

Antifa groups have successfully used this information to get members of supremacist groups fired, such as a Northrup Grumman engineer dismissed after he attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Video allegedly also helped identify Siegel’s client, Clanton, as the man who hit a far right protester in the head with a bicycle lock last year. Clanton agreed in August to plead guilty to misdemeanor assault.

Meanwhile, Siegel said while he “has plenty of business,” he hasn’t been able to get fake one-star reviews removed from the firm’s Google page that label him “evil evil evil” and “bike lock lawyer.” He’s also seen his face show up on flyers, websites and 4chan, an online forum used by members of the far right.

“I’ve been practicing over 40 years,” Siegel said. “I don’t remember every time people have left nasty messages on my telephone, but this was clearly the worst.”

Most intimidating were the several white supremacists who picketed outside the courthouse and sat in on hearings though Siegel said their numbers quickly diminished as the slow legal process dragged out.

The harassment isn’t universal. Sacramento defense attorney Linda M. Parisi said she has faced “no repercussions” for defending an Antifa member charged with assault stemming from the same 2016 clash at the state capitol as Planer.

The Sacramento court confirmed Spaulding still represents Planer, whose trial was just delayed from this week until December. The partner with Spaulding & Campi Criminal Attorneys in Sacramento did not return several calls seeking comment.

Planer’s previous attorney did talk though he asked his name not be used because he was ordered disbarred last month on an unrelated matter. He said he “was harassed a lot” with “nasty emails and crank calls.” He also got a poster labeling him “scumbag attorney to neo-Nazis” and pointing out he had previously represented a white supremacist charged with murder.

“My response was always the same: Everyone is entitled to representation,” he said.

But at least some litigants now appear to be ending up with attorneys sympathetic to their beliefs.

For instance, many white supremacists claimed they couldn’t find attorneys to defend them from charges and lawsuits stemming from Charlottesville.

Several ended up hiring Elmer Woodard and James Kolenich. Woodward is a Civil War reenactor who has mocked Heather Heyer, the woman killed during the clash. Kolenich is a self-proclaimed white supremacist and anti-Semite.