Court denies Slavin's latest appeal

A federal appellate court ruled Monday that taking photos of a man's hate-themed tattoos against his will and showing them to jurors is not enough to throw out his conviction.

Christopher Slavin, now 39, is serving a 25-year sentence after being convicted in 2001 for the attempted murder and assault of two Mexican day laborers from Farmingville in the first of several high-profile violent attacks against Hispanics in Suffolk County. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan ruled that showing Slavin's tattoos to jurors was not the same as forcing him to testify against himself.

"The court agreed with our position that Slavin's tattoos were not the product of government compulsion and therefore not a violation of the defendant's Fifth Amendment rights," District Attorney Thomas Spota said in a statement. "The tattoos of a swastika and other hate symbols were relevant to the defendant's motive and his state of mind."

Slavin and co-defendant Ryan Wagner were convicted in separate trials in the attack on Israel Perez and Magdaleno Estrada in Shirley in 2000. It was the first of several high-profile hate crimes against Hispanics in Suffolk.

Last week at the Second Circuit in Manhattan, Slavin's attorney, Robert Del Col of Smithtown, argued it was wrong for Suffolk prosecutors to force his client to show Nazi and other white-supremacist tattoos. Del Col argued that was the same as violating Slavin's constitutional right to remain silent.

The court disagreed. Even if it agreed that Slavin's tattoos were the same as testimony, the court said in a terse two-page decision that Slavin got them voluntarily and that he "has fallen far short" of showing that lower courts ruled wrongly.

Del Col said he was "very disappointed" in the decision. "They went to great lengths to avoid embracing the Fifth Amendment," he said. "It's a forced argument. . . . This court has adopted the government's position that it can compel testimony from a defendant."

Del Col said he hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would hear an appeal of the case.