College Park, Md (WUSA9) — At the University of Maryland, the bus shelter near where 2nd Lt. Richard Collins III was stabbed to death by a suspected white nationalist student remains out of service nearly a year later "out of respect", according to a sign.
While many students take it as gospel that Collins' stunning murder was a racially-motivated hate crime, suspect Sean Urbanski has still not had his day in court and remains innocent until proven guilty.
Now Urbanski's attorney's are seeking to stop a jury from seeing evidence that is "more shocking than the underlying crime," the legal team wrote in recent court filings.
Urbanski's attorneys call their clients membership in a now-defunct white nationalist group on Facebook called Alt-Reich, as well as racially offensive cartoon images and texts found on his phone as "not relevant" to the case.
In a pretrial motion scheduled for a hearing on Thursday, Urbanski's attorneys call the evidence "extremely prejudicial".
A jury trial is scheduled in July.
In an early preliminary hearing, one of Urbanski's lawyers said the murder may have involved extreme alcohol intoxication.
