VIOLENCE FOR VIOLENCE’S SAKES : The War to End WAR : HATE ON TRIAL: The Case Against America’s Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi, <i> By Morris Dees and Steve Fiffer (Villard: $21; 280 pp.)</i>

“Hate On Trial” begins with the recounting of a particularly brutal hate crime in Portland, Ore.--the killing by skinheads of Mulugeta Seraw, a young Ethiopian student. Three members of the White Aryan Resistance movement, a well-financed white supremacist organization known popularly as WAR, were quickly arrested and after a few months pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter as well as to assault and intimidation.

Morris Dees, civil-rights attorney and co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., seized the opportunity to attempt to prove that WAR, headed by Tom Metzger of San Diego, was liable for the violence of its members. Using tactics similar to the ones he used in a civil-rights lawsuit against the Ku Klux Klan in 1984, he filed a lawsuit in the state court in Portland, naming not only two of the convicted felons, but WAR itself and Metzger and his son John as defendants. The 1984 suit had been successful and resulted in bankrupting the Klan. Dees was determined to do the same with WAR.

The book, written with Steve Fiffer, also an attorney, gives us a glimpse of the inside workings of an organization dedicated to hatred and the kinds of people who are attracted to racial violence. It also provides an interesting picture of how lawyers arrive at legal strategies and includes an intriguing description of the tense moments that occur during a courtroom battle. In the end, justice is served when the jury finds the defendants guilty and assesses damages of $12.5 million, almost all of it against WAR and the Metzgers.

The strategy Dees used in bringing WAR to its knees was successful and it’s hard to quarrel with the result. White-supremacist groups are on the rise in this country as are racial tension and vicious hate crimes. Solving the underlying causes will take time, so the elimination from the American landscape of an organization like the one run by the Metzgers should be applauded. However, some of the tactics used by Dees raised serious concerns among civil-libertarians--and among others who believe that the end does not always justify the means.

Dees brought three charges against the Metzger crowd. The first was that WAR and the Metzgers intentionally caused the murder of Seraw by issuing orders to skinheads to kill blacks and instructing them in how to carry out their mission. This was a reasonably traditional theory under which persons responsible for acts committed by others may be held liable for damages. The trick is to show that the defendants, not just the perpetrators, were really the responsible parties; that they were a cause of what occurred, and that they intended the general, if not the specific, result. No one but the Metzgers and their supporters objected to Dees’ using this theory as a basis for trying to pin responsibility on--and bankrupt--the Metzgers and WAR.

Dees’ other two charges, however, were highly questionable. Dees claimed that the Metzgers were responsible for Seraw’s death because of their “reckless” or “negligent” conduct, much of which involved speech or the expression of ideas. This was too much for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, which intervened as a friend of the court and objected on First Amendment grounds. The ACLU argued that reckless or negligent political speech is “protected.” Ultimately, Dees won his case on the first theory, and the First Amendment issues were rendered moot. Still, civil-libertarians ended up wondering once again just where their friend Morris Dees stands.

“Hate On Trial” tells us almost as much about its author as it does about the trial he sets out to describe--as is so often the case with Dees. A liberal icon, Dees is no shrinking violet. He has, however, been the subject of scathing criticism from some of his colleagues in the movement. They question his motives and even his commitment to the principles to which his life has been dedicated. They wonder about his fund-raising tactics, which bring in much more money than he spends on programs; about his failure to fully account for the funds he raises, and about his sharing of information with the FBI and the police.

The most recent incident to draw the wrath of the liberal community occurred in the closing moments of last fall’s Congressional session when Dees almost single-handedly brought about the confirmation to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit of a right-wing prosecutor from Alabama who specialized in sending people to the electric chair and was widely known for his efforts to uphold the exclusion of blacks from death-penalty juries. The battle in the Senate was furious and close, but Dees was everywhere pushing his candidate, Edward Carnes.

The combination of conservative senators enthusiastic about Carnes’ views and liberals won over by Dees’ lobbying was too much for the public-interest groups, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to overcome. The defeat was all the more bitter to Dees’ customary allies because, had they been able to stall Carnes’ nomination, as they successfully did at session’s end with all other pending controversial nominees, the nomination would have expired and a hoped-for new President would have been able to name a liberal with a pro-civil-rights record in Carnes’ place. After 12 long years of watching Carnes-like nominees take over the federal courts, the civil-rights community felt betrayed.

Both the admirers and detractors of Morris Dees concede he is not only a master fund-raiser, but an enormously skilled trial lawyer, and “Hate On Trial” is a testament to the latter. His tactics, strategy and ultimate victory are most impressive. The book provides moments of good courtroom drama and even some suspense and intrigue. But in the end, the story is largely one of how a top-flight lawyer using his ingenuity can develop legal theories and marshal facts sufficient to win a novel civil lawsuit. This is not a subject likely to intrigue the average reader.

After reading “Hate On Trial,” as before, one is left with the feeling that Dees is smart, shrewd, a charmer, and a first-rate lawyer. I guess, all things considered, I’d rather have him on my side.