William Pierce Appeal Denied
The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will not hear Pierce's appeal in the Center's case, Mansfield v. Pierce.
The U.S. Supreme Court announced in November that it would not hear an appeal of a judgment that the Southern Poverty Law Center won against National Alliance leader William Pierce. The court's ruling means that Center attorneys can now move to collect an $85,000 judgment for the family of Harold Mansfield, a black sailor murdered by a white separatist.
Last July, a federal appeals court upheld the Mansfield v. Pierce decision. Pierce now has no further avenue for appeal.
Mansfield was killed in 1991 by a "reverend" of the Church of the Creator (COTC), a hate group based in North Carolina. The Center sued the COTC in 1994 and won a $1 million default judgment for the Mansfield family, but the COTC's leader had transferred ownership of its property to Pierce to prevent it from going to Mansfield's heirs.
In May 1996, a North Carolina jury found that Pierce had been involved in the scheme to hide the COTC assets and returned a verdict for the Mansfield estate.
