White supremacist testifies at Jewish site deaths trial, says jurors will put him on death row

OLATHE, Kan. – A white supremacist charged with killing three people at Jewish sites in suburban Kansas City testified in his own defence Friday, trying to introduce evidence about his beliefs that the judge did not allow.

Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., who is acting as his own attorney, called himself to the witness stand and spoke of his military history and of how he started a group in North Carolina called the White Patriot Party. Miller also told jurors the prosecutor had a “slam dunk” and he knew they would put him on death row.

Miller has repeatedly admitted that he killed the three people, but argued that he was targeting Jewish people because they are committing genocide against the white race. None of the three victims was Jewish.

District Attorney Steve Howe objected frequently to Miller’s comments on the stand, saying they were not relevant to the capital murder trial. As Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan sustained each objection, Miller appeared to grow frustrated.

“I promised this court that I would not lose my temper,” he said. “I’m doing the best I can.”

The three exhibits Miller tried to introduce — a video of him in military uniform leading the White Patriot Party and two news articles — were disallowed. Ryan told him any similar materials likely would be as well.

Miller, 74, of Aurora, Missouri, is charged with killing William Corporon, 69, and Corporon’s 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, and Terri LaManno, 53, at the nearby Village Shalom retirement centre on April 13, 2014.

If found guilty, Miller could be sentenced to death.

“He’s got a slam dunk,” Miller told jurors, referring to Howe. “You guys are going to put me on death row. We all know that.”

Miller, who insisted on a speedy trial even after his stand-by attorneys said that didn’t give them enough time to prepare a legitimate defence, has at times seemed overwhelmed by legal proceedings he called “mumbo jumbo.” He spent an hour on the stand Friday speaking directly to jurors. None of his comments dealt with the fatal shootings.

Capital murder trials in Kansas have a guilt phase focusing on evidence about the crime and a sentencing phase when defendants are allowed to present mitigating evidence — including what was on their mind at the time — intended to spare them from a death sentence.