'Mississippi Burning' trial and conviction thread

Edgar, I agree his age is immaterial. My point was that if he does get a "20 year sentence", he's obviously not going to serve all of it. Not in this lifetime anyway.

This article makes the charge a little more clear. It states that the jury found Killen guilty on three counts of felony manslaughter, but not guilty of the more serious charge of murder. I'm not exactly clear why that is so.

The other thing that's interesting is the fact that the jury split 6-6 yesterday, but was somehow able to come to an agreement for a unanimous decision necessary in order to convict. I wonder what swayed them?

Jury convicts accused Klansman of killings

Tue Jun 21, 2005 03:47 PM ET
By Kyle Carter

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. (Reuters) - Accused Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty of manslaughter on Tuesday in the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers, a case that outraged much of the country and energized the civil rights movement.

Killen, 80, had been portrayed by prosecutors as a Ku Klux Klan leader who recruited a mob to kill Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney exactly 41 years ago, on June 21, 1964. The killings in Neshoba County were dramatized in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

The jury found Killen guilty on three counts of felony manslaughter but not guilty of the more serious charge of murder.

Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon ordered him held at the Neshoba County Sheriff's office pending sentencing on Thursday. Killen, who faces up to 20 years in prison, showed no visible emotion as the verdict was read. He had an oxygen tube in his nose and bailiffs wheeled him away in the wheel chair he has used since breaking both legs in a logging accident in March.

The trial in the small Mississippi town of Philadelphia, the latest in a string of prosecutions in recent years from civil rights era killings in the South, evoked memories of the violent racial conflicts of four decades ago.

Killen, a sawmill operator and Baptist preacher, did not testify. He was accused of murdering Schwerner and Goodman, white New Yorkers, and Chaney, a black Mississippian, who were helping black Americans in Mississippi register to vote during the 1964 Freedom Summer civil rights campaign. If convicted of murder he would have faced life in prison.


NO LONGER A 'HOLLYWOOD MOVIE'

In closing arguments, prosecutor Mark Duncan urged jurors to "remove the stain" on Neshoba County. After the verdict, he said it had shown the true character of Neshoba County residents and shown that Mississippi had changed.

"We won't be painted or described or known throughout the world by a Hollywood movie any more," Duncan said.

Defense lawyer James McIntyre told the court Killen "may have been associated with the Klan" but had nothing to do with the killings and was not present when they occurred.

Duncan said that while the verdict was not "perfect," "Mr. Killen has been held responsible for these deaths."

The three victims, all in their 20s, were abducted and shot by a group of Klansmen on a remote road outside the eastern Mississippi town on June 21, 1964. Their bodies were found weeks later in an earthen dam.

"I hope that this conviction helps to shed some light on what has happened in this state. I see it as a very important first step," Rita Bender, widow of Michael Schwerner, told reporters.

But she added, "The fact that some members of this jury could have sat through that testimony, indeed could have lived here all these years and could not bring themselves to acknowledge that these were murders .... there are still people among you who choose to look aside, who choose to not see the truth. That means there's a lot more yet to be done."

Killen was among a group of men tried in 1967 for violating the civil rights of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney. Seven co-defendants were convicted by the all-white jury and served up to six years in prison but Killen's trial ended in a hung jury after a lone holdout said she could never convict a preacher.

State prosecutors did not pursue murder charges against any of the original suspects in the 1960s, perhaps swayed by the realization that no jury in Mississippi had at that time ever convicted whites for killing blacks or civil rights workers.

Killen stayed in the Philadelphia, Mississippi, area after the 1967 trial. He was arrested early this year and charged with murder after Mississippi investigators reopened the case.

This was the latest in a string of such revisited cases. According to civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center, since 1989, authorities in seven states have reexamined 29 killings from the civil rights era. They have made 27 arrests, which have led to 21 convictions, not counting this case.

Former Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen is wheeled out of the Neshoba County Courthouse after being found guilty of manslaughter on three counts in Philadelphia, Mississippi, June 21, 2005. Killen was found guilty of manslaughter for the June 21, 1964 murders of three civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. Photo by Kyle Carter/Reuters

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood (L) and Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan speak at a news conference at the media center after Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty of manslaughter on three counts in the June 1964 civil rights murder case in Philadelphia, Mississippi, June 21, 2005. Killen was found guilty of the June 1964 murders of three civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. Photo by Kyle Carter/Reuters

Rita Schwerner Bender, the widow of Michael Schwerner, looks toward the Neshoba County Courthouse while walking past the media before the first full day of deliberations in the Edgar Ray Killen civil rights murder trial in Philadelphia, Mississippi June 21, 2005. Killen was found guilty of manslaughter on Tuesday. Photo by Kyle Carter/Reuters

J.D. Killen (L) and Kenneth Killen (C), brothers of Edgar Ray Killen, walk toward the Neshoba County Courthouse along with Dorothy Dearing, Killen's sister, before the first full day of jury deliberations in the Edgar Ray Killen civil right murder trial in Philadelphia, Mississippi, June 21, 2005. Killen was found guilty of manslaughter on Tuesday in the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers, a case that outraged much of the country and energized the civil rights movement. Photo by Kyle Carter/Reuters

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Sometimes, a jury may compromise. This jury was split, half possibly wanting to convict of murder, with perhaps some saying, "If you want to convict of murder, I can't go along with you." They may have settled to avoid a hung jury.
A jury I sat in was hung because one person wanted acquittal against the rest of us. I believe he finally gave in, not through persuasion, but because we were going to have to return the next day. Sensing his state of mind, we came to a compromise: so much money for the one count, but, zero dollars for the second. The judge arched an eyebrow when he read our statement, but, we had our conviction.

Ah, I see, yes, makes sense since you put it that way. Do you know, off the top of your head, what the legal definition difference is between the manslaughter charge and murder?

Well, while I would have perferred the murder charge, I think it's good that he at least was convicted of felony manslaughter. I hope that this will bring some closure to the families affected, at least in some small way.

I am not versed in law. Perhaps one of our knowlegeable fellow members will stop in to enlighten us.

Duncan: Trigger men dead

Wednesday, June 22, 2005
The Neshoba Democrat

By JOSH FOREMAN
Staff Reporter

Still-living remnants of the gang that murdered three civil rights workers here fall into two categories, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said - the still-proud "nod and wink" kind, and those who have convinced themselves that they didn't have anything to do with the murders.

Edgar Ray Killen, Hood said, belongs to the former group. "They want to brag about it but they're cowards and they don't want to take the medicine," he said.

Killen was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of three young men who were helping blacks register to vote four decades ago.

Hood and Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan discussed the challenge of trying the 41-year-old case in a question and answer session about an hour after Killen was convicted on three counts of felony manslaughter Tuesday.

The two said that they knew much more about the case, including who actually killed the three, than they were allowed to tell jurors in court.

They faced several problems, they said. For one, some witnesses, including several of those who were convicted in a 1967 federal civil rights violation trial, refused to testify or sign written statements. Others, Hood said, were dead. Three of the most significant witnesses in the case against Killen died, he said.

Duncan said Wayne Roberts and James Jordan, both of Meridian, were actually responsible for shooting the young men, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Roberts shot Goodman and Schwerner, he said, and Jordan shot Chaney, they said.

Another witness committed suicide after telling investigators that Killen had been present when Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers gave the orders to "eliminate" or murder Schwerner, whom they had nicknamed "Goatee."

They said one thing they didn't know about the case was whether Killen had been present at the shootings or the subsequent disposal of the bodies. "There's some questions that will go to the grave unanswered," Hood said.

Hood said the state plans to make public all evidence collected in the investigation, even pieces that weren't admissible in Killen's trial.

Hood and Duncan were upbeat after the conviction. "First, I want to say to the families of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman that while we can't undo what was done 41 years ago, at least now the state of Mississippi has done what it can do," Duncan said.

Duncan said that although they pushed for a murder conviction in the case, they were satisfied with a manslaughter conviction. "I do not see it as a failure," he said. "It was not a perfect verdict, but you have to understand, it was not a perfect case."

Dozens of national and international news organizations called Neshoba County home throughout the trial.

Duncan and Hood called it the most important case in Mississippi history, as did Circuit Court Judge, Marcus D. Gordon in the courtroom before the jury was brought in the verdict was read.

But Hood said the political and social ramifications of the trial didn't concern him in his investigation. "I'm just a prosecutor," he said. "I don't pretend to be a sociologist.

"Mark and I didn't bring this to a grand jury to solve any social problems," he said. "I don't know what to say other than we were just doing our jobs."

Duncan, a Philadelphia native, said the trial spoke volumes about the character of Neshoba County residents. "Finally I want to say something about the people of Neshoba County," he said. "Today, like I said before, I know the character of the people of this county.

"Neshoba Countians will no longer be "painted and described around the world by a hollywood movie."

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They done good, within the confines of the law and a backward people.

We shall look forward to Thursday then.....

Sentencing Thursday; calm prevailsSource[/color]

Yes, I would agree. In the articles I just posted, it says that there was evidence that was not allowed to be presented, but will be made public. Should be interesting.

More info on yesterday's conviction.

Convicted Mississippi Klansman faces sentencing
Thu Jun 23, 2005 06:38 AM ET

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. (Reuters) - Former Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen will get at least a three-year prison term -- and could draw up to 60 years -- for the 1964 killing of three civil rights workers, when he faces a sentencing hearing set for Thursday, a Mississippi legal official said.
Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon scheduled a sentencing hearing on Thursday in Neshoba County, Mississippi, for the 80-year-old former Baptist preacher convicted of the notorious crime that galvanized the civil rights movement and inspired the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

A multiracial jury convicted Killen on Tuesday on three counts of felony manslaughter, finding that he organized a posse to kidnap, beat and shoot Michael Schwerner, Andrew

Goodman and James Chaney and bulldoze their bodies under an earthen dam.

But the jury cleared him of the more serious charge of murder. Schwerner and Goodman, white New Yorkers, and Chaney, a black Mississippian, were helping blacks register to vote in Neshoba County during the Freedom Summer civil rights campaign when they were killed on June 21, 1964.

Killen faces up to 20 years in prison for each manslaughter conviction. Because he has a prior felony record, for making threatening telephone calls in the 1970s, he is ineligible for probation and must serve at least one year in prison for each count, said Jacob Ray, Special Assistant Attorney General in Mississippi.

"It'll have to be a three-year minimum," Ray told Reuters by telephone. "We will recommend the maximum, 60 years."

Neither side was expected to call witnesses to testify during the sentencing hearing, Ray said. Under Mississippi law, the judge must weigh the nature of the crime against any mitigating factors in determining Killen's sentence.

"They take into consideration the type of crime that was committed, how heinous it was, the facts surrounding the killings themselves. On the mitigating side, they consider age, things like that," Ray said.

Killen breathes with the aid of an oxygen tube and has used a wheel chair since breaking both legs in a tree-cutting accident in March.

He did not testify in his trial in the small Mississippi town of Philadelphia, the latest in a string of prosecutions in recent years from civil rights era killings in the South.

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Killen got the maximum sentence, even though he was charged with felony manslaughter, and not murder. So, it all worked out in the end.

Ex-Klansman gets 60 years for civil rights killings

Thu Jun 23, 2005 01:29 PM ET
By Kyle Carter

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. (Reuters) - Elderly former Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen was sentenced on Thursday to 60 years in prison for the 1964 killing of three civil rights workers, the notorious crime that galvanized the civil rights movement and inspired the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

Killen wore a yellow prison jumpsuit and showed no emotion as Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon handed down the maximum sentence for the 80-year-old former Baptist preacher, a punishment likely to keep him locked up alone for the rest of his life.

Killen, bald and bespectacled, was wheeled forward to face the judge. He has used a wheel chair since breaking both legs in a tree-cutting accident in March and sometimes breathes with the aid of an oxygen tube.

The judge said he took no pleasure in imposing what amounted to a life term but that the law made no distinction based on the age of the convicted. He sentenced Killen to 20 years for each killing.

"Each life has value," the judge said. "There were three lives involved in this case and the three lives should absolutely be respected and treated equally."

A multiracial jury convicted Killen on Tuesday on three counts of felony manslaughter, finding that he organized a posse to kidnap, beat and shoot Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney and bulldoze their bodies under an earthen dam.

But the jury cleared him of the more serious charge of murder. Schwerner and Goodman, white New Yorkers, and Chaney, a black Mississippian, were helping blacks register to vote in Neshoba County during the Freedom Summer civil rights campaign when they were killed on June 21, 1964.

Killen did not testify in his trial in the small Mississippi town of Philadelphia and he declined the judge's invitation to speak at the sentencing hearing.

Killen's attorney, James McIntyre, said he would appeal the verdict with a challenge to the judge's instruction to the jury to consider manslaughter if they could not agree on the murder charges. He expected to file the appeal on Friday.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said he was not surprised by the sentence.

"I think the judge saw the evidence was there for a murder conviction as well," he also noted evidence that the prosecutors had not been able to bring to the trial.

Hood said that because of parole rules in the state, Killen had received a tougher punishment with a 60-year sentence -- eligible for parole only after 20 years -- than with a life sentence, which at his age would have made him eligible for parole after 10 years.

JUDGE 'GOT IT RIGHT'

Commenting on the sentencing, Rita Bender, widow of Michael Schwerner, said the judge "got it right. Every human life has value, every human life has equal value. That means these three men's lives had value."

But Bender stressed that the conviction and sentencing were only a beginning in bringing justice for the crimes of the civil rights era.

"There are many many violent crimes that have never been brought to justice. The reality is that what happened today is just the beginning," she said.

This prosecution was the latest in a string of such revisited cases resulting from civil rights era killings in the South. Civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center said that since 1989, authorities in seven states have reexamined 29 killings from the era. They have made 27 arrests, which have led to 21 convictions, not counting this case. Several life sentences have been handed down.

If authorities have re-opened such cases in recent years, it is partly because of a generational change among prosecutors and district attorneys, Heidi Beirich, a spokeswoman for the center, said earlier this week.

Killen was arrested early this year and charged with murder after Mississippi investigators reopened the case.

He served six months at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman in 1996 and 1997 for a felony conviction of making harassing phone calls.

This time, he will be held in a cell by himself, isolated from other prisoners under an administrative protection status reserved for those at risk of retaliation from other inmates.

"It's kind of a race issue, in that our (prison) population is 70 percent black," Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said.


Killen, today, in a yellow prison jumpsuit.

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Killen sentenced to 60 years

The Neshoba Democrat
Thursday, June 23, 2005

By DEBBIE BURT MYERS
Managing Editor

Former Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen will spend the rest of his life in prison for his part in the murders of three civil rights workers here in 1964.

Circuit Court Judge Marcus Gordon sentenced Killen to 20-years on each of three counts of manslaughter. The sentences were to run consecutively for a total of 60 years.

Killen was believed to have orchestrated the June 21, 1964 murders of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner who had come to Neshoba County to investigate beatings and the burning of Mt. Zion Baptist Church.

Gordon said he had listened to the evidence in the case and it was his duty to pass on a sentence to a person who is 80 years old and suffering from a serious injury.

He spoke of the slain men and said each life had equal value and the three "should absolutely be respected."

Attorney General Jim Hood said Killen, who appeared unremorseful during the trial, would have the rest of his life to reflect on his actions.

"I hope at some point he'll get to that realization that you don't get to heaven unless you admit what you've done and ask for forgiveness," Hood said.

Killen entered the courtroom in a yellow jumpsuit issued to him at the Neshoba County Jail and spoke briefly with his attorney James McIntyre.

Before pronouncing the sentence, Gordon said it was a difficult task that he "never really learned how to do."

He thanked his clerks, the attorneys and law enforcement officers for their professionalism during the trial and then summoned the defendant to the bench.

Killen's wife, Betty Jo, quickly ran up to her husband to kiss and comfort him after the sentence was handed down. She then returned to her seat and the judge ordered him to be taken into custody.

McIntyre said he would appeal the case, arguing that the jury should not have been allowed to consider manslaughter.

Any motions are to be heard Monday at 9 a.m.

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One down, lots more out there.

Gotta start somewhere! :wink: A number of convictions have already been done, although this was a high profile one.

A little more detail about the sentencing.

41 Years Later, Ex-Klansman Gets 60 Years in Civil Rights Deaths

The New York Times
June 24, 2005
By ARIEL HART

PHILADELPHIA, Miss., June 23 - Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Klansman in a wheelchair, was sentenced Thursday to 60 years in prison for his role in the deaths of three civil rights workers in 1964.

Judge Marcus D. Gordon handed down the maximum sentence, 20 years for each death, after the jury convicted Mr. Killen of manslaughter and rejected charges of murder.

"All we're trying to do is do what's right under the law and the facts of the case," the judge said. "The law does not recognize the distinction of age."

In his statement before pronouncing the sentence, Judge Gordon seemed at first to be veering toward leniency. He pointed to Mr. Killen's infirmity and age. He noted his own anguish at deciding sentences, saying it was "one of the things I never really learned how to do."

He criticized those who "demeaned" the community because the jury's verdict on Tuesday was manslaughter rather than murder, saying it amounted to "attacking the integrity of the jury system."

Mr. Killen, a sawmill operator and preacher, sat impassively in a yellow jumpsuit, two days into his confinement at the Neshoba County jail. Finally, Judge Gordon said, "Edgar Ray Killen, come around," and the ailing defendant's wheelchair was pushed out to face the bench. "I take no pleasure at all in pronouncing sentence," he said.

"There are three lives involved in this case, and the three lives should absolutely be respected and treated equally," the judge said. Then he ordered Mr. Killen to serve three consecutive sentences of 20 years each.

Mr. Killen was convicted in the deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered by a group of men who prosecutors said were organized by Mr. Killen. Their disappearance, and the discovery of their bodies in an earthen dam, galvanized the civil rights movement.

Mr. Killen's brother, Oscar K. Killen, expressed contempt for the judicial system and reporters. "Money will do anything," he said.

Supporters of the prosecution embraced. "I think we got a little justice this morning," said Rita Bender, the widow of Mr. Schwerner.

Murmurs of dismay rose up earlier when the judge rued that "I have to pass upon a sentence to a person who is 80 years old, a person who has suffered a serious injury."

Jim Hood, the state attorney general, who tried the case with Mark Duncan, the district attorney, had said Mr. Killen could receive as little as one year on each charge.

"There was a knot in my stomach until he actually gave the sentence," said Angela Lewis, who was 10 days old when her father, Mr. Chaney, was killed. "The only thing I could do was sit and hope and pray it would be the maximum on all three convictions."

It was justice, Ms. Lewis said, but too long delayed. "It's what he deserves. But he's had 41 years to sit down to dinner with his children," she said. "That's something that me and my dad will never have."

Prosecutors said that a sheriff's deputy pulled over the three men on June 21, 1964, and jailed them long enough for Mr. Killen to organize a death trap. Jurors said they rejected murder charges because the evidence, much of it transcripts of testimony from a 1967 federal trial, did not prove that Mr. Killen knew that the men would be killed.

In 1967 the federal government tried 18 men for conspiring to deprive the victims of their civil rights. Seven were convicted; none served more than six years in prison. That jury deadlocked 11 to one in favor of convicting Mr. Killen; the holdout said she could not convict a preacher. The state had not brought charges in the deaths until Mr. Killen was prosecuted this year.

Mr. Hood said no other prosecutions were likely unless a new witness came forward. Mr. Duncan said that prosecutors had submitted evidence on eight living suspects to a grand jury, but that only Mr. Killen was indicted.

The prosecutors said Mr. Killen would be eligible for parole after 20 years.

Mr. Killen spent the trial in a wheelchair; he broke his legs in March while chopping wood. During the trial, he sometimes breathed through oxygen tubes, and at one point was taken to the hospital with high blood pressure.

One of Mr. Killen's lawyers, James McIntyre, said he would appeal and ask that Mr. Killen be released on bond. Mr. McIntyre said that the charge of manslaughter was introduced too late for Mr. Killen's team to prepare a defense, and that he would subpoena members of the news media whose coverage he said was biased against his client.

Mr. Killen's trial is one of several recent efforts by prosecutors to revisit notorious killings from the civil rights era. Mr. Killen is expected to join Sam Bowers, an imperial wizard in the Klan who was convicted in 1998 of the murder of the civil rights advocate Vernon Dahmer, at the state prison in Rankin County. Mr. Bowers also served time on a federal conviction in the Philadelphia case.

Each man will probably be in solitary confinement, Mr. Hood said.

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Its pretty well covered on the interntional news channels in Australia - they cover every second of the trial and its results. But people here generally seem very indifferent to the whole situation, I don't know if its because it occurred so long ago but because its a mainly US situation.

Personally I think its a pity that three young men so full of potential and plain good-hearts had to die at such a young age over such a worthy cause.

Yes, people seem to be reading the topic, but very little exchange of views. That's the way it goes sometimes...

Little exchange of views, I guess, because nobody seriously supports Killen.

About the only issue would be the idea of prosecuting someone 41 years after the crime. There is no statute of limitations on murder, of course, but people who have been found to have committed murder many years after the fact have been given light sentences when convicted.

In this case, of course, the murders were not just of three people, but part of a century long campaign on the part of white supremecists to kill any dreams blacks might have of ever achieving equality.

So nobody particularly feels sorry for the defendant.

I suppose your are right for the most part. It would be interesting to know how much empathy the fellow has locally. Perhaps there are still some /many who hold the same old views that they held 40-50 years ago. Sometimes, opinions are very slow to change, especially with older generations.

Of course, one reason it had to take a long time, the state's values had to change enough to make it feasible.