UPDATE APRIL 16: Russell Courtier was sentenced to life in prison with a 28-year minimum. Read that story here.

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A jury’s verdict Tuesday that Russell Orlando Courtier acted out of racial malice in driving into and killing African American teenager Larnell Bruce Jr. appears to mark Oregon’s first hate crime murder conviction in three decades.

Jurors found Courtier guilty of murder, second-degree intimidation and hit-and-run driving for chasing Bruce in a Jeep onto a sidewalk before speeding away in August 2016 after the two fought at a 7-Eleven in Gresham.

Courtier was wearing a hat at the time that displayed the initials and shield of the white supremacist prison gang, European Kindred. The prosecution said Courtier deliberately targeted 19-year-old Bruce with the SUV and witnesses heard his girlfriend egg him on.

The last time a defendant was convicted of a racially fueled murder in the state was in 1989, as far as prosecutors and national hate group watchdog Randy Blazak can remember. It came in the case of Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw, who was bludgeoned to death by a group of skinheads with a baseball bat on a Southeast Portland street.

The brutal crime and the racism behind it shook Oregon and the nation and exposed a white supremacist group that was able to bubble up and exist in a liberal community that some thought had eradicated such hate.

Blazak, who has spent his career studying hate groups and testified for the prosecution in the Courtier trial, said part of the reason these murder convictions are so few is that such crimes are truly rare.

“We’ve gotten plenty of people getting beat up, lots of vandalism,” Blazak said of bias defendants who have attacked people or property.

Another reason is that it’s difficult for prosecutors to prove someone’s mindset – what the defendant was thinking when he or she turned violent, said Blazak, chairman of the Oregon Coalition Against Hate Crime.

While jurors found Courtier guilty 12-0 of the murder and hit-and-run driving, when it came to the hate-crime charge of intimidation, two jurors voted that the prosecution hadn’t proven it beyond a reasonable doubt. The 10-2 vote on that count was just enough to secure a conviction.

Courtier didn’t take the stand during the eight-day trial in downtown Portland. His lawyers argued that he suffered a concussion in the fight and wasn’t thinking rationally when he drove into Bruce. The prosecution said Courtier, who joined the European Kindred 15 years ago while incarcerated, was a racist who made no secret about his beliefs within his circle.

As Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson read the verdict, members of Bruce’s family breathed deeply and cried -- a release of emotion after the tense trial. As family members streamed out of the courthouse, some said they thought justice had been served.

Christina Mines, Bruce’s mother, struggled to find words as she wiped away tears.

“I’m so happy,” Mines said.

The four women and eight men deliberated almost 10 hours over three days.

Larnell Bruce Jr., 19, died on Aug. 13, 2016, three days after Russell Courtier intentionally drove into him.

Under Oregon law, Courtier will face a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of release after 25 years. But prosecutor David Hannon has notified the court that he plans to ask for a longer prison term, given the circumstances of Courtier’s crimes.

Courtier’s sentencing hearing could still be weeks off and jurors could be asked to return to help decide on factors that would affect his sentence. Given the high-stakes nature of the case and the desire to protect jurors from unwanted contact in the hallways, courthouse deputies escorted the them from the courthouse.

During trial, defense attorneys Kevin Sali and John Robb contended that Bruce suddenly started punching and beating Courtier without provocation on the night of Aug. 10, 2016. Courtier had just driven up to the 7-Eleven at 188th Avenue and East Burnside with his girlfriend.

But Hannon said there was no evidence that Bruce started the fistfight outside the convenience store. Surveillance video shows Bruce peacefully standing outside the store for minutes until Courtier drove up and parked, then suddenly a fight was on, the prosecutor said.

Hannon said he couldn’t say what the disagreement was about, but he noted that Bruce was African American and Courtier is white, and Courtier wore a hat with white supremacist symbols recognizable and well-known to some.

Courtier had joined the European Kindred in 2003 or 2004 and also had the gang’s initials and logo tattooed onto one of his legs, Hannon said. He also played for jurors a video showing Courtier saying the n-word while in a police interview room hours after the killing.

A defense expert testified Courtier could have suffered a concussion. But the prosecution pointed out that medical records contained no information that Courtier suffered a concussion or brain injury during the fight. A prosecution expert diagnosed Courtier with antisocial personality disorder, typically defined by a lack of remorse for harm caused to others.

The defense urged jurors not to judge Courtier on past ties to the white supremacist gang.

“There is an ugliness to this case,” Sali said. “There is an ugliness to Mr. Courtier himself -- things he’s said, things he’s done, people he’s associated with. ...The truest test of our commitment to the principles underlying our justice system ... is how rigorously and faithfully we apply them with someone we don’t identify with … (whose) very existence offends us.”

Courtier’s mother, Debbie Courtier, said after the verdict that she doesn’t believe her son is a racist and that white supremacy didn’t motivate her son to fatally strike Bruce.

Courtier’s girlfriend, Colleen Hunt, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter last week, in the midst of trial. Witnesses said they heard Hunt yell to Courtier from the passenger seat of the Jeep: “Get him, baby!” and “Run him over!”

Hunt has agreed to be sentenced to 10 years in prison at a later date.

Blazak said Courtier’s conviction carries an unavoidable paradox.

One of the effects of sending Courtier back to prison is he will be revered by members of European Kindred for the murder.

“The irony is this guy is going to go into prison a ranking EK soldier and spend (his prison term) recruiting people,” Blazak said. “He’s going to have a lot of juice going back into the yard.”

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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