NH attorney general takes Portsmouth racist banner case to Supreme Court after dismissal

PORTSMOUTH — New Hampshire's highest court will hear a state civil rights case against a neo-Nazi group leader charged with hanging a racist banner reading "Keep New England White" in Portsmouth last year.

New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella filed a mandatory appeal on Thursday for the state Supreme Court to take up the case against Christopher Hood, a Newburyport, Massachusetts, resident and leader of the Nationalist Social Club.

Hood, now-deceased group member Leo Cullinan and other members of the group known as NSC-131, were charged in January with violating the New Hampshire Civil Rights Act. All were accused of hanging the racist banner off the Stark Street overpass above Route 1 in July 2022.

At the heart of the case is whether the neo-Nazi group trespassed in Portsmouth with the banner. Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David W. Ruoff granted Hood and Cullinan their motion to dismiss the charges on June 5, writing that the state’s interpretation of the Civil Rights Act against the white nationalists was “unconstitutionally overbroad.”

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Ruoff further stated the complaint against the neo-Nazi group on the same grounds should be dismissed.

“The conduct alleged in the Complaints, while reprehensible by most civilized standards, does not fit any definition of ‘trespass’ other than the one the Court has concluded is unconstitutional (at least as to public property),” Ruoff wrote in his June 5 motion to dismiss. “Because the State clarifies that it is only proceeding on a theory of actual trespass … and no constitutionally viable theory of trespass occurred here, the Complaints fail to state a claim for relief under the Civil Rights Act. Accordingly, the Complaints must be dismissed.”

Formella appealed Ruoff’s decision but was denied by the judge, leading to his decision to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

The appeal asks the high court to consider whether Ruoff erred in granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss the charges, whether he erred in denying Formella’s motion to reconsider, and whether he erred in calling Formella’s application of the Civil Rights Act “unconstitutionally overbroad.”

The attorney general is also asking the Supreme Court to consider “whether the trial court erred when it concluded that the First Amendment precluded a Civil Rights Act enforcement action despite acknowledging that the State could maintain enforcement actions under the generally applicable, content neutral laws that form the foundation of the State’s trespass allegations.”

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Michael Garrity, spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, said both sides will be given opportunities to file briefs. He said if the court decides to hold oral arguments, he expects it would be in the spring or early summer, "unless the court expedites the process.”

Hood’s attorney, Bradford Stanton, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Court documents state that on July 20, 2022, the Portsmouth Police Department responded to the overpass after receiving calls about the banner. Police found about 10 men wearing hats, sunglasses, and face coverings emblazoned with “NSC-131” or “131,” court records state.

Hood was allegedly among them and was not wearing a facial covering as he spoke to city police. After speaking with police, Hood instructed the members to remove the zip ties holding the banner in place and to remove it from the fence, court documents state.

“Some of the group’s members stood on the overpass and continued to display the banners by hand before returning to their vehicles and departing with the banners,” Ruoff’s order on the motion to dismiss the charges reads.

Cullinan allegedly approached police “[y]ou’re not interfering with my friends and interfering with our rights” before the group left the overpass after police spoke with Hood for roughly 25 minutes, per the motion to dismiss.

NSC-131 calls itself a “pro-white, street-oriented fraternity dedicated to raising authentic resistance to the enemies of our people in the New England area,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.

“NSC-131 members consider themselves soldiers fighting a war against a hostile, Jewish-controlled system that is deliberately plotting the extinction of the white race,” the ADL adds. “Their goal is to form an underground network of white men who are willing to fight against their perceived enemies through localized direct actions.”

The neo-Nazi group previously targeted a drag story hour held at the Seacoast Repertory Theatre in late 2021, dropped recruitment materials on residential properties in Portsmouth and Kittery last year, and also held a white supremacist sign on Route 1 near the Kittery Trading Post in 2022. Each demonstration by the group led to large counter-demonstrations from local community members decrying the group’s promotion of hate.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth neo-Nazi racist banner case heading to NH Supreme Court