Mississippi 40 years later correcting a wrong?

[JGirl]

You got that right on the land issue. There's a term for that but I can't recall it. Land rich money poor ? Something like that. We wanted to sell some land of the back of our property to the neighbors who had nowhere to park their work vehicles. My mother in law went ballistic. It's like Tara. As long as you have land you have life. It's in their blood. I worked Chareston for 6 summers back in the 80's. I absolutely loved it there. I never once had a prob. Not like the ones I encountered in GA anyway.

[Hmph]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/12/miss. ... index.html

and may killen rot for every year he kept silent about this one!

'Mississippi Burning' trial set to start
Jury selection begins Monday in 41-year-old civil rights case

Monday, June 13, 2005 Posted: 9:42 AM EDT (1342 GMT)

PHILADELPHIA, Mississippi (CNN) -- Jury selection begins Monday in a 1964 civil rights case that still haunts this rural town of 7,300 residents.

The case dates back to the "Freedom Summer," when young people from around the country came to the South to register black voters.

Among them were three men -- Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, both white, and James Chaney, black.

Schwerner, 24, and Goodman, 20, were volunteers from New York sent to Mississippi. Chaney, 21, was a resident of Meridian, Mississippi, who participated in the voter drive.

On June 21, the men were heading down the Mississippi back roads to investigate a torched church that was to have been home to a school.

The FBI says Ku Klux Klan members beat several church members then set the church afire, leaving it a charred ruin.

But before the three men reached the church, police arrested the men for speeding and tossed them into the Neshoba County Jail.

Prosecutors say that while the three were sitting in jail, a gang of about 20 Klan members put a plan in motion to kill them. Authorities accused part-time Baptist preacher Edgar Ray Killen of leading the effort.

Hours later, police released the civil rights workers, who drove away in their station wagon.

Right behind them were two carloads of Klan members, authorities say.

After a chase, the mob forced them off the road, grabbed them from their car and shot them dead at close range, authorities say.

The men then used a bulldozer to bury the bodies in an earthen dam.

After a 44-day search, FBI agents dug the bodies from under 15 feet of dirt.

The state never charged anyone with murder, and federal statutes against murder did not exist at the time.

Instead, the federal government tried 18 men, including Killen, on charges of conspiring to violate the civil rights of the victims.

Seven were convicted and served prison sentences of no more than six years. Eight were acquitted.

During the 1967 trial, former Ku Klux Klansman James Jordan testified that Killen told the men involved that deputies "had three of the civil rights workers locked up, and we had to hurry and get there and we were to pick them up and tear their butts up."

Killen walked free after the all-white jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction. The lone holdout said at the time that she could never convict a preacher. The jury also deadlocked on two other cases.

Killen -- now 80 years old and frail -- maintains he is innocent.

In March, Killen broke both legs in a tree-cutting accident. The judge has rejected a request that the trial be delayed, but has made provisions for the defendant to be made comfortable during the trial, which is expected to last about two weeks.

Civil rights activist Lawrence Guyot recently told CNN that the arrest of Killen made him "proud to be a Mississippian."

Guyot said he knew Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner and "almost got in the car with them" on that fateful night in June 1964. (Full story)

"It is never too late to do what is right," he said. "Justice delayed should not be justice denied."

The killings helped spur national support for the civil rights movement.

The investigation inspired the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning," directed by Alan Parker, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including best picture.
Other cases reopened

The Killen case is the latest of several infamous killings from the civil rights era in the South to be reopened since the early 1990s.

In 1994, a Mississippi jury in Hinds County convicted self-proclaimed white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 ambush killing of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi.

Beckwith died in prison in 2001 while serving a life term. He had been tried twice for the crime in 1964, but in both cases an all-white jury deadlocked.

In 1998, another Mississippi jury convicted former Klan imperial wizard Sam Bowers of the 1966 firebomb-killing of an NAACP leader.

In 2002, an Alabama jury convicted former Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry of first-degree murder in the 1963 firebombing of a Birmingham church that killed four black schoolgirls.

Cherry was sentenced to a life term and died in prison. His co-defendant in the firebombing, Thomas Blanton Jr., was convicted a year earlier and sentenced to life in prison.

Earlier this month in Chicago, Illinois, the FBI exhumed the body of Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old who was kidnapped and mutilated in Mississippi in August 1955.

Two men were tried and acquitted of Till's murder by an all-white jury but later confessed to the crime, which became a rallying point for the early civil rights movement.

The two men are now dead, but the government said it has reason to believe others were involved and hoped evidence might be recovered from an autopsy of Till's body, which was not performed at the time of his killing.

[Hmph]

don't think this will help his case much

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/15/missi ... index.html

On Monday, Killen was escorted to court by a KKK "imperial wizard."

[Vinnie]

This guy is so slick he may fake his own death to get out of trial. Cant outslick the man upstairs. Maybe he thinks he can.

[Hmph]

it's finally over. manslaughter. however, I heard the live speech by Ben Chaney, brother of James Chaney. very powerful and moving. and I was not aware that at least 9+ other bodies of black men were found buried during that same time, men who also participated in voter registration.

I'll say it again and again, when there's a complaint from others about reparations as in they should better themselves, here was a non-violent, peaceful attempt met with violence.

and those persons responsible for the deaths of the other men are probably still in law enforcement, politics or simply living as if some great deed was done

[Hmph]

and how fitting, the conviction today is on the same day as the disappearance of the 3 men. if that's not someone calling from the grave, it's one helluva coincidence.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/21/missi ... index.html

Former Klansman found guilty of manslaughter
Conviction coincides with 41st anniversary of civil rights killings

Tuesday, June 21, 2005; Posted: 4:50 p.m. EDT (20:50 GMT)

PHILADELPHIA, Mississippi (CNN) -- Forty-one years to the day three civil rights workers were ambushed and killed by a Ku Klux Klan mob, a jury found former Klansman Edgar Ray Killen guilty of all three counts of manslaughter Tuesday.

The 1964 "Freedom Summer" killings of James Chaney, 21, Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24, helped galvanize the civil rights movement that led to major reforms in access to voting, education and public accommodations.

Circuit Court Judge Marcus Gordon set Killen's sentencing for Thursday at 10 a.m. (11 a.m. ET). He faces a prison sentence ranging from one to 20 years per count, said Mississippi Attorney General James Hood.

"There's justice for all in Mississippi," Hood said.

The jury of nine whites and three blacks reached the decision after several hours of deliberations. The conviction was on a lesser charge; prosecutors had charged Killen with murder.

Killen, 80, displayed no emotion as the verdicts were read.

But as the wheelchair-bound man was being escorted from the courthouse under heavy guard, he took swipes at reporters' microphones and cameras. One of the reporters was black, as was a cameraman.
'This is not over with'

Chaney's brother, Ben, said that despite the verdicts, "This is not over with. ... But we'll take what we got."

From her home in New York's Manhattan, Goodman's mother, Carolyn Goodman, 89, said she had waited a long time for a guilty verdict, but it was "nothing to be happy about."

"I'm just overcome. ... But you know I had a feeling it was going to happen," she said.

"I just hope he's off the streets," she said of Killen. "I don't want anything more terrible than that. I don't want anything violent. I'm against capital punishment."

Schwerner's widow, Rita Bender, said, "I would hope that this case is just the beginning and not the end."

She acknowledged the fact that the case likely became a high-profile one because Schwerner and Goodman were white New Yorkers who came to the South the summer of 1964 with hundreds of other volunteers to register black voters. Chaney was a black man from Mississippi.

Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan said the verdict means his county will no longer "be known by a Hollywood movie anymore," referring to the 1988 film "Mississippi Burning" based on the killings.

"Today we've shown the rest of the world the true character of the people of Neshoba County," Duncan told reporters.
Prosecutor: 'Venom' still exists

In his closing argument Monday, Duncan implored the 12 jurors to "hold the defendant responsible for what he did."

"What you do today when you go into that jury room is going to echo throughout the history of Neshoba County from now on," Duncan said. "You can either change the history that Edgar Ray Killen and the Klan wrote for us, or you can confirm it."

"Find him guilty of murder," Duncan said. "That's the verdict that the state of Mississippi asks you to return."

"Those three boys and their families were robbed of all the things that Edgar Ray Killen has been able to enjoy for the last 41 years. And the cause of it, the main instigator of it was Edgar Ray Killen and no one else," the district attorney said.

"He was the man who led these murders. He is the man who set the plan in motion. He is the man who recruited the people to carry out the plan. He is the man who directed those men into what to do."

The balding, bespectacled Killen -- a former part-time Baptist preacher -- appeared to be sleeping during much of the closing remarks.

Hood, who led the case, said he wished "some of my predecessors would have done their duty" by bringing charges against Killen. Noting that it was "not good politics to bring this case up," he said, politics and time should not get in the way of justice.

Hood said testimony showed Killen possessed "venom" at the time of the killings and still does.

"That venom is sitting right there. It is seething behind those glasses," he said. "That coward wants to hide behind this thing and put pressure on you."

Burden of proof

Defense attorney Mitch Moran said "nothing in the record shows Edgar was there" during the ambush and killings.

"The '60s was a terrible era in a lot of ways. We do not need to relive them, and we do need to go forward," Moran said. "What I'm asking you to do is to look at this evidence and hold the state to the burden of proving this case beyond a reasonable doubt."

On June 21, 1964, Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were on their way to investigate the burning of a black church when they were briefly taken into custody for speeding.

According to testimony, the Klan had burned the church to lure the three men back to Neshoba County.

After they were released from the county jail in Philadelphia, a KKK mob tailed their car, forced if off the road, and shot them to death. Their bodies were found 44 days later buried in an earthen dam -- in a trench dug in anticipation of the killings, according to testimony.

In a 1967 federal trial, an all-white jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of convicting Killen. The lone holdout said she could not vote to convict a preacher.

Seven other men were convicted of conspiring to violate the civil rights of the victims, namely their right to live. None served more than six years in prison. At the time, no federal murder statutes existed, and the state never brought charges.

[Hmph]

60 years

I'll send him a care package, perhaps a black baby doll and black history books to help him pass the time with. I was in the airport when I heard byron de la beckwith had died in prison. hoping I am at a resort sipping tropical drinks when I hear of his death so I can just as easily hold my drink up for a toast like he just as easily sat quietly and smugly knowing he was responsible for the lives of many.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/23/missi ... index.html

and to think he was a preacher. another reason the majority of those churches down south mean nothing to me when I pass them or hear about them, like the one klan supporter rindy abdelnour attends weekly.

[Hmph]

and where are people like Becca to the defense when it comes to people like: Judge (can't believe that's his title) William Harold Cox who existed long after slavery was abolished.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/project ... rs/Cox.htm

Judge William Harold Cox
William Harold Cox was the federal district judge who presided over the October, 1967 Mississippi Burning Trial.

Cox was appointed to the federal bench by President Kennedy in order to appease Senator James Eastland, the powerful chair of the Senate Juciary Committee. Eastland was determined to win an appointment for Cox, his former roommate at Ole Miss, and campaigned shamelessly on his behalf. Eastland reportedly said to Robert Kennedy, "Tellyour brother that if he will give me Harold Cox, I will give him the nigger [Thurgood Marshall, who Kennedy was hoping to place on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals]."

Although Cox had assured Robert Kennedy prior to his appointment that he would conscientiously apply federal law, once on the bench he did what he could to frustrate Justice Department initiatives aimed at bringing about integration. Cox was consistently overruled on appeal, but his decisions over delayed suits for many months. In a voter registration case prosecuted in his court by John Doar in March, 1964, Judge Cox referred to a group of black witnesses scheduled to testify as "a bunch of chimpanzees." Cox's remark led Senator Jacob Javits and Congressman Peter Rodino to launch an impeachment drive against Cox. The drive failed, but attracted considerable support and may have served to mellow Cox somewhat.

In February, 1965, Cox threw out the indictments against most Neshoba County conspirators on the ground that all except Rainey and Price were not government officials and therefore could not be charged with acting 'under color of law." The U. S. Supreme Court overruled Cox in 1966 and reinstated the indictments.

When the Mississippi Burning case finally came to trial in October, 1967, the defendants assumed that they had an ally in Cox. He disappointed them by reprimanding the defense at one point saying, "I am not going to allow a farce to be made of this trial." After the jury returned its verdict, Coax declared, "I very heartily endorse the verdict of the jury." He sentenced the defendants to terms ranging from three to ten years. Cox said of his sentences, "They killed one nigger, one Jew, and a white man. I gave them all what I thought they deserved."

and check out the smiling and grinning photo of the original men indicted. fucking unreal how retarded some people can be, but I truly believe they will know more suffering than any civil rights workers killed by them

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/project ... bowers.htm

[Hmph]

so now this literal cracker won't serve a day in jail. because appeals will take 12-15 years to resolve and by then he'll be dead! and the family will receive it's $600K back or $60K (through bondsman) after he's dead!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/08/12/civil ... index.html

[JGirl]

I was reading that earlier today. At first I was pissed but when you think about it, I would be surprised if anyone in Philadelphia, MS could scrounge up 600k. On top of that, please remember due process of the law. If he is appealing and poses no flight risk or harm to the community he gets bail. I'm not in the minds of the family members but one must feel that after all this time a conviction was all they really wanted. Yes, time in jail would have been good but they got their conviction.