GRAHAM — The billboard on Interstate 40-85 of the district attorney and the sheriff is being used as evidence that two men charged with assaulting law-enforcement officers, including the sheriff, cannot get a fair trial in Alamance County or from its chief prosecutor.

Rann Baron — sometimes also spelled Bar-On — of 201 N. Drive St., Durham, and William Hood of 145 Kingsbury Drive, Chapel Hill, appeared Monday, Oct. 9, in Alamance County Superior Court on charges of assaulting law-enforcement officers May 20 while protesting a Confederate Memorial Day rally at the Old Courthouse.

Their new lawyer, Scott Holmes, a professor at N.C. Central University School of Law, asked for and got a continuance to Nov. 27. Holmes also drafted motions in both cases, including ones to move the case out of Alamance County to give his clients a chance at a fair trial, and for Alamance County District Attorney Pat Nadolski recuse himself from the case because of his personal and professional relationship with Sheriff Terry Johnson, whom Baron is charged with assaulting, violates due process rights.

“It violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for the prosecuting attorney as an officer of Court in a quasi-judicial position to prosecute a case in which he has a close personal and political relationship with the victim of the crime,” the motion reads.

To demonstrate that relationship, Holmes points to — and includes a photograph of — the billboard, near N.C. 62, with Nadolski and Johnson standing back to back in front of the Old Courthouse with the slogan “Working side-by-side to protect Alamance County.”

Baron is charged with felony assault on a law enforcement officer inflicting injury, and misdemeanor destruction of personal property.

The allegation, according to Holmes’ motion, is that Baron hit Johnson on the shin, aggravating a pre-existing injury, so Holmes is asking also for medical records of that pre-existing injury and the injury Baron is accused of causing, and his medical records for the past six years.

Hood also faces a felony charge of assault on a law enforcement officer inflicting physical injury, as well as misdemeanor charges of assault on a government official or employee, and carrying a weapon at a parade — a knife, according to Graham police.

The motion for discovery of material the defense believes would show Baron’s innocence tries to link allegations the U.S. Justice Department made in its suit against Johnson and the ACSO to radical and racist groups the defense says participated in the rally, saying, “Federal law enforcement officials alleged Sheriff Johnson used racial slurs to refer to minorities, and that he directed his subordinates to illegally target them for unlawful arrests …,” and that on the day Baron and Hood were arrested, there were members of far-right and racist groups, some of whom wore Klu Klux Klan symbols and “brandished weapons.”

To support that, it includes photos, including one that appears to be Johnson on Court Square shaking hands with a man wearing camouflage fatigues and what appears to be military-style body armor standing at the head of a group of at least seven men, some also wearing camouflage, one apparently wearing a kilt, and two of them carrying flags.

Another photo shows possibly some of the same men posing for a photo with the Gadsen or “Don’t tread on me” flag, holding up three fingers in an “OK” — a gesture associated with the 3 percent militia groups — with Johnson standing behind them behind a police tape barrier, posted on twitter with the caption, “Alamance County Regulators with Terry Johnson.”

The motion also includes a photo of two men walking on Court Square in a larger group carrying Confederate flags, wearing shirts with what appears to be a hand-written “Southern Pride” slogan, and a symbol of a triangle with an upside down triangle inside that, according to Holmes’ motion, forming three K’s, which he claims is a Ku Klux Klan insignia.

“As the complaining witness against Defendant, Sheriff Terry Johnson’s credibility is directly at issue in this case, as is his relationship with the groups at whose rally Defendant was arrested,” the motion reads.

Holmes also is requesting all state records of Johnson or his deputies using racial slurs or “racially discriminatory law enforcement practices,” any documents about the nature of the relationship between Johnson and the ACO, and the groups holding the Confederate Memorial Day rally in May, including ACTBAC, its founder Gary Williamson, the Alamance County Regulators Militia, the III% (3 percenters) Militia, the KKK, Kyle Rogers and the Council of Conservative Citizens, the League of the South, Blood and Honour, and Identity Evropa.

It also asks for all correspondence among the ACSO, sheriff, District Attorney’s Office and county manager about protests and protesters in the past three years, and all complaints against the sheriff’s office and Johnson in the past 10 years.

The motion asks to take the case out of Alamance County “on the grounds that there exists in the county so great a prejudice against the defendant that he cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial,” claiming “extensive news coverage of this case in local papers which have portrayed defendant in a negative light and tainted the jury pool in this county. Johnson spoke to the press describing the incident from his point of view, while the case was still pending,” and includes some of the Times-News coverage.

Baron and Hood were part of the protest by the Industrial Workers of the World of the Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County, or ACTBAC, rally May 20 at the courthouse and the Confederate monument.

According to the Sheriff’s Office and Graham police, both of which filed charges, Baron was attempting to destroy a flag, possibly with lighter fluid. Sheriff Terry Johnson intervened to get the flag back, and said Baron struck him with the flagpole, leading to a struggle between officers and IWW members. Johnson told the Times-News that Hood was coming to grab him when a couple of Graham officers jumped in to stop him, and Hood fought with them.

A third man with the IWW, Gregory Southall Williams, 37, of 904 W. Murray Ave., Durham, was charged with misdemeanor resisting a public officer. His next court date is Oct. 24. He also faces charges, including wearing a mask or hood on public ways, in Orange and Durham counties apparently over other Confederate-monument protests.

Two men, active-duty Marines, who hung a banner from a building near the courthouse with a so-called “identatarian” — often considered white nationalist — message also were charged with misdemeanor trespassing. One of them has since faced separation from the Marine Corps.

The rally, protest and the arrests with issues of Confederate monuments, white supremacist and anti-fascist groups drew the national spotlight to Alamance County.

Reporter Isaac Groves can be reached at igroves@thetimesnews.com or 336-506-3045. Follow him on Twitter at @tnigroves.