'Mississippi Burning' trial and conviction thread

It's a story I am not familiar with. Regardless, the case in Miss. is seperate from that one.

I am not saying anyone on this thread was saying to leave him alone.

But that was the general sentiment at the time.

I believe there have been other cases where they found out someone killed someone decades ago, and the person was treated pretty well, if he kept himself out of trouble in the meantime.

Most murder trials hinge on public sentiment in one way or another, which, after all, is why they had to wait a long time to try this guy. That's a big part of why I am not in favor of the death penalty.

It's good to see the times and people's attitudes changing. Sometimes it takes an awfully long time, as the 35% of those who opposed this trial still shows. Poll is at the end of this article.

Almost half in poll favored trial in '64 killingsSource[/color]

I mean this in a good sense only - but, hey, I find it great that there are no members on a2k whom I have met so far who are... oh how do I say it nicely, in agreement with KKK principles or are, you know racist. It seems that everyone here is in general agreement that the trials were called for and deserved and what the man did was wrong.

Great!

Yes, that would appear to be so of those who chose to post their opinions. At least on this topic.

On other controversial topics on the board, there may be no racism, but some truly off-kilter views which make me scratch my head and roll my eyes.

Killen seeks release from jail pending appeal

Clarion-Ledger
July 12, 2005
By Jerry Mitchell

Defense lawyers say the law demands that convicted Klan killer Edgar Ray Killen get out of jail on an appeal bond.

"Any person convicted of a felony other than treason, murder, rape, arson, burglary or robbery is entitled to bail pending appeal," Killen's lawyer, Mitch Moran of Carthage, wrote in a motion asking for his client to be freed.

"If the person convicted is then and there ready to give adequate bail, it is error to commit him to jail."

But prosecutors say they plan to argue Killen, an 80-year-old Union sawmill operator, deserves to stay behind bars for his involvement in the June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. A jury convicted Killen of manslaughter, and Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon sentenced him to 60 years in prison.

Moran anticipates the defense request on Killen's possible appeal bond will be heard next week.

Defense lawyer James McIntyre of Jackson said petitions are being circulated in the community to show Killen is "not a threat to society, not a flight risk, not a menace to society."

He said the state has the burden of proof to show these things: "I just don't think people like him for what he was accused of doing."

Moran wrote in his request to free Killen: "Edgar Ray Killen has close ties with family, friends and community. Edgar Ray Killen has never shown any propensity toward violence with anyone, and he is not a flight risk. He has lived in this area all his life."

Schwerner's widow, Rita Bender of Seattle, disputed Moran's claims, pointing out that Killen does have a prior criminal record. He was convicted in 1975 of threatening a woman over the telephone. She also pointed out that Killen made a threat to one of the jail guards after his arrest.

After Killen arrived at the Central Mississippi Corrections Facility in Pearl, jailers asked him standard questions about suicide that they ask all new inmates.

Asked by a black jailer if he had any thoughts about killing himself, a jailer said Killen replied, "'I ain't thinking about killing myself. I'll kill you before I kill myself.'"

Moran said because Killen was convicted of manslaughter, he should be entitled to bond. "Manslaughter is an accidental death because you did something really stupid," Moran said. "All the other crimes require premeditation."

Bender responded the killings of these three men by the Klan was hardly like a typical manslaughter case. "This isn't like somebody does something in the heat of passion that goes too far," she said. "The evidence was quite clear that he (Killen) said, 'We're going to tear up their a----.' I would say that's evidence of a propensity for violence."

Bender said a number of people in Philadelphia told her that if Killen was released on bail, "it would say to him and to anyone else who was inclined toward violence that Edgar Ray Killen was still above the law. People expressed fear to me, real concern. They felt the message would be, 'You still can't get us.' "

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Killen classified medium-security, remains in Rankin prisonSource[/color]

Killen's Attorneys File Appeal Bond

July 15, 2005

On July 29th, a Neshoba County judge will hear Edgar Ray Killen's bid to get out of prison while he appeals his conviction. Killen's attorney filed the motion this week, asking for an appeal bond. Killen was convicted last month in the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964. Judge Marcus Gordon sentenced him to 60 years in prison.

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Here is the inside account of what happened in the Killen trial from one of the jurors.

Mississippi turning: Inside the Killen jury

Date: Thursday, July 14 @ 00:00:30
Topic Opinion

Last month it was my duty to serve on the jury in the trial of Edgar Ray Killen.

It was my unpleasant charge to decide the fate of a fellow human. In the course of my 55 years I have survived a war, earned a bachelor's degree, suffered and exalted, traveled the world and worked my way from high school dropout to senior engineer.

Still, nothing prepared me for this, nor did any of the other 11 jurors seem any less humbled by this task. No one took this lightly.

My fellow jurors seemed to be a good representation of the people of Philadelphia, Miss., and Neshoba County. None of us wore Italian leather. Nobody was dressed in rags. We ranged in age from our 30s to our 60s. All of us were literate and soft-spoken and working people. And we were all familiar with the story of the three civil rights workers who had disappeared from our town in 1964 and whose bodies had been found only after a 44-day search.

It is unfortunate that I feel I must also point out that none of us was dirty, or barefoot, or smelly. None of us sat glassy-eyed, eating peanuts or chewing tobacco. None of us laughed at the brutal murders of three people. Nobody made any jokes. And no one argued that participation in the Ku Klux Klan was understandable given "the times," or that those "Yankee boys" brought all this on themselves, or that after "all this time" we should let this pass by the way. In short, nobody I saw, either in demeanor or in action, fit the stereotype of Mississippi that seems so prevalent, even today.

So why did we find Killen guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter, instead of murder? The answer is easy, yet it will be entirely unacceptable to people who need to find some conspiracy or who need to validate their own system of stereotypes and prejudices. We found Killen guilty of manslaughter because that's what the evidence supported.

I don't think there was one of us who did not have a good idea of what went on in Neshoba County in June 1964. I don't think any of us had much doubt as to Killen's role in those horrible events. What I do know with certainty is that Killen did not have any special friends in that jury room. The jury was initially split between those who felt he was guilty and wanted to convict him of murder and those who felt he was guilty and were frustrated because the state did not present sufficient evidence to convict him under the jury instructions.

Still, we followed the law and the court's instructions. We did not enter into some exercise of "jury nullification" -- in which jurors vote according to their convictions rather than by the law as prescribed -- either for or against Killen. As it was put to me by a fellow juror: "If your brother was on trial here, wouldn't you want him tried according to the law?"

In order to convict Killen on murder charges, according to our jury instructions, it had to be proved that he had pulled the trigger or that others had been acting under his specific direction to kill the three men. What we heard in court was that Killen told some people in Meridian that three civil rights workers "needed their asses tore up" and then showed these people where to sit and wait for the three in Philadelphia. But it was not established that he gave them any instructions to perform a specific act.

We focused on what was presented in the courtroom, not what we'd heard over the last 41 years, and not what we either assumed or wished to be true. Had we convicted that man of murder in the absence of proper evidence, knowing even at the very least that he was certainly guilty in any reasonable moral sense, we would have been acting in the same spirit as the Ku Klux Klan. We would have been setting the law aside and subverting the process to suit our own purposes. Killen received a fair verdict, based on the evidence.

Keep in mind that this nation has changed over the decades. Just as the Californians who in 1943 sentenced young Latino "zoot suiters" from Los Angeles to hard time in San Quentin on trumped-up charges are long gone, so too are those who ruled the law, politics and social order of Mississippi in the 1960s. It is a new day everywhere -- including in Mississippi.

As to people who claim there is still prejudice in Mississippi, well, of course there is. There will always be those who need to "get a life," who will substitute intolerance where they lack compassion, ideology where they lack imagination. There will also always be those who make their business inflaming the passions of such people. Among those are KKK leaders like Killen and demagogues who preach to the cameras on the courthouse steps.

All the rest of us can do is to do unto others as we would have others do unto us.

Warren Paprocki is an engineer in Philadelphia, Miss.

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'64 confession kept from Killen jury

July 17, 2005
The Clarion-Ledger
By Jerry Mitchell

What jurors in the Edgar Ray Killen trial didn't hear could have prompted at least some of them to vote Killen guilty of murder.

On June 21, the 41st anniversary of the Klan's killings of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, a Neshoba County jury found Killen guilty of manslaughter, and Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon sentenced him to 60 years.

During the trial, jurors heard that the late Klansmen Wayne Roberts and James Jordan were among the men Killen recruited from Meridian the evening of June 21, 1964, before returning with the Klansmen to Philadelphia. What jurors didn't hear was those two men shot and killed the trio.

Informed of that, juror Warren Paprocki replied that knowing Killen recruited those two killers would have been "the last link. I would have found (Killen) guilty of murder."

Paprocki said he knows the information would have made a difference to other jurors, and juror Troy Savell agreed.

Hearing jurors' remarks, Assistant Attorney General Jacob Ray said, "I hate that. I wonder how many others felt the same way."

Interviews with jurors show just how in the dark they remained about the details of the Klan's killings of the trio, a lack of details they say kept them from finding Killen guilty of murder.

Killen's lead counsel, Mitch Moran of Carthage, said he wanted to let the jury know the whole story, and that's why he tried to introduce the 1964 confession of Horace Doyle Barnette, who took part in the trio's killings.

In the 1967 federal conspiracy trial, an FBI agent read Barnette's statement into the record when Barnette refused to testify. But jurors only heard the names of Barnette and James Jordan, who pleaded guilty, in the statement. For the names of the others Barnette identified as being involved, a "blank" was substituted. The trial ended with the convictions of seven, the acquittals of eight and the mistrials of three, including Killen.

Moran explained: "I just felt like the jury had a right to know it all."

Although Killen could have been implicated by Barnette's statement, Moran said the statement shows Billy Wayne Posey, convicted in the 1967 federal trial, played a major role, but wasn't indicted by the state, while Killen played a minor role and was indicted by the state.

When Moran sought to introduce the confession in Killen's trial through the FBI agent's 1967 testimony, prosecutors objected.

When Moran said he'd be happy to fill in all the blanks so jurors could hear the names of all involved, prosecutors still objected.

Attorney General Jim Hood later bemoaned the fact jurors hadn't heard Barnette's statement, but he said he objected to admission of the statement at the time, worried it would conflict with Jordan's testimony, which jurors already had heard.

The judge concluded the statement was hearsay and excluded it from evidence because Barnette didn't testify in the 1967 trial and, therefore, wasn't cross-examined.

He is now dead, as are the FBI agents who took his statement.

As a result, jurors never heard how Roberts grabbed Schwerner from the back of Neshoba County Deputy Cecil Price's patrol car, stuck a gun to his chest and fired. Jurors never heard how Roberts grabbed Goodman from the car and shot him, too. Jurors never heard how Roberts and Jordan shot Chaney as he tried to flee.

Nor did jurors hear Barnette describe how Killen showed Klansmen where to wait for the civil rights workers and told them, "We have a place to bury them, and a man to run the dozer to cover them up."

Barnette then remarked in the statement: "This was the first time I realized that the three civil rights workers were to be killed."

Upon hearing this statement, Paprocki replied, "Holy cow. Why weren't we allowed to hear that?"

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I am no supporter of the death penalty. Sixty years of sentence will keep him locked up the rest of his natural days, where he will ponder the road not taken (and the one taken).

Edgar,

Pardon my ignorance, but does Mississippi have the death penalty for sure, and is it automatic if one is convicted of murder?

Just checking....

I have no idea. Being a Texan, I automatically expect a death penalty, since that's the rule here.

Oh, okay. Just wondering, as I realize not all of the various states have the penalty. I'll try and do some research on it.

Below is information on the death penalty in Mississippi:

State Abbreviation................................... MS
State Name............................................. Mississippi
Death Penalty?........................................ Yes
Age of Eligibility for Death Penalty............. 16
Number of Executions Since 1976.............. 6
Number of Executions before 1976............. 351
Current Death Row Population................... 70
Number of Women.................................... 1
Number of Juveniles.................................. 5
Date Death Penalty Re-enacted.................. 04-23-1974
1st Execution After Re-enactment............... 1983
Is Life Without Parole an Option?................ Yes
Can a defendant get death for a felony in which s/he was not responsible for the murder?......... Yes
Number of Innocent Persons Freed From Death Row..... 1
Number of Clemencies Granted.................. 0
Region...................................................... South
Method..................................................... Injection
How is the Sentence Determined?............... Jury
Location of Death Row(s)........................... Parchman (Women: Pearl)
Clemency Process Governor has sole authority to grant clemency

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Change the drop-down list to Mississippi

This "multiple murder weapon" theory is interesting. I will watch to see if this exhumation goes ahead and see where it leads.

Exhumation considered in Mississippi civil rights slayings

Eyewitness News
July 22, 2005

The "Mississippi Burning" case apparently remains open, despite last month's conviction of ex-Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen.

He was convicted in connection with the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

But one of the victim's brother says he's considering the exhumation of James Chaney's body to determine if it contains bullets from more than one weapon. Ben Chaney, who now lives in New York, says his family's goal is to "get the truth out."

The Clarion-Ledger newspaper of Jackson, Mississippi, reported Wednesday that a man who bought two guns from a suspect in the deaths of Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman is willing to allow ballistics tests on the weapons.

A prosecutor says there is also a "high probability" of recovering usable bullet fragments from Schwerner and Goodman as well.

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Guns bought from late Neshoba sheriff, purchaser confirms

The Clarion-Ledger
July 22, 2005
By Jerry Mitchell

The man who bought two guns from a suspect in the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers has confirmed that suspect is the late Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence Rainey.

"My client does have documentation," said Dick Downey, a lawyer from Franklin, Ky., who said his unnamed client bought a .30-30 Winchester rifle and a Star 9mm pistol in the late 1960s from Rainey, who was living then in Kentucky.

Downey, who contacted The Clarion-Ledger, said his client does not want to be identified and is not looking for publicity.

Downey said if evidence points to those guns possibly being used in the Klan's June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, his client is willing to turn the guns over for possible testing and will certainly share all he knows.

Chaney's brother, Ben, said today he plans to spend the weekend talking with his family about the possibility of James Chaney's exhumation.

Less than an hour after a jury recently convicted Edgar Ray Killen of manslaughter in the trio's killings, prosecutors told reporters the only two triggermen in the case, Wayne Roberts and James Jordan, are dead.

But the work of world-renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden and Mississippi state forensic pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne has revealed the possibility of additional gunmen. Baden said two additional bullets still in Chaney's body could be matched to weapons, perhaps paving the way to murder charges if such a match took place.

Baden said it's possible the two guns the Kentucky man purchased could be responsible for the additional bullets in Chaney. The only way to confirm that would be to test those weapons against the bullets, he said.

Testimony at the '67 trial placed Rainey in Meridian, where his wife was having surgery, before returning late that night to Philadelphia. Horace Doyle Barnette's confession to the FBI said Rainey met the Klansmen after the killings, telling them, "I'll kill anyone who talks, even if it was my own brother."

Downey said it's possible that the guns Rainey sold his client had "belonged to someone else."

That certainly appears to have been the case with regard to another weapon, also possibly used in the slaying.

Former Klansman and Meridian police officer Mike Hatcher testified Killen gave him a revolver to destroy the day after the trio's killings. After the trial ended, Hatcher wouldn't talk about the make of the gun or whether he had followed Killen's instructions to get rid of the gun.

Books and movies have portrayed the trio as being executed by two Klansmen, Wayne Roberts and James Jordan: Roberts grabbed Schwerner, 24, and shot him once, then Goodman, 20, and shot him once. Jordan then joined Roberts in killing Chaney, 21. Ballistics confirmed bullets removed from the bodies came from two different .38-caliber pistols.

Dr. William Featherston of Jackson did the original autopsy and removed three bullets from Chaney's body, but Baden said X-rays show two other bullets struck Chaney in his arms and are still there.

Chaney was shot in the back and in the head before being given "the coup de grace in the chest area," Baden said.

According to the autopsy report, Chaney had his left arm broken in one place, "a marked disruption" of the left elbow joint, and a right arm broken in two places.

The fracture to Chaney's right wrist suggests a bullet, a sixth, passed through or possible blows, Baden said. "It could have been caused by a blunt object like a baseball bat, but the deformed left upper arm is due to shooting."

Attorney General Jim Hood has said all the statements authorities received make no mention of any triggermen besides Jordan and Roberts. One statement mentions Roberts emptied his gun into Chaney.

But Hood pointed out it might be difficult for those present to know exactly who fired their guns on such a dark night. "There are questions we just don't have answers to unless somebody decides to come forward."

In his 1964 confession to the FBI, Jordan describes the various guns Klansmen had that night: Horace Doyle Barnette had a .30-caliber rifle; Wayne Roberts, a snub nose gun, possibly an English .38-caliber pistol; Jimmie Snowden, a sawed-off shotgun; Billy Wayne Posey, a pistol, make and model unknown; and Jimmy Aldridge, a long-barreled pistol.

In addition to what Baden found in Chaney's body, Hayne examined the X-rays of Schwerner and Goodman: "The radiologist said there were bullet fragments in the head and neck area of each."

Although the pathologist at the time discounted that possibility, Hayne described each in his report as a "potential gunshot wound."

Assuming both Schwerner and Goodman were shot a second time, Baden said, "There were at least nine shots fired that night, maybe more."

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Killen's bond hearing set for Aug. 5

Sun-Herald
Posted on Tue, Jul. 26, 2005
Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. - A hearing has been rescheduled for a circuit judge to decide whether one-time Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen will be released from prison while appealing his manslaughter convictions for masterminding the killings of three civil rights workers.

The hearing before Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon is now set for 9 a.m. Aug. 5, a spokeswoman for the Neshoba County circuit clerk's office said Tuesday. The hearing originally had been set for this Friday.

Killen, 80, was convicted on three counts of manslaughter on June 21 - exactly 41 years after Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were mobbed by Klansmen, shot to death and buried in an earthen dam outside Philadelphia.

Gordon sentenced Killen to three consecutive 20-year terms, and Killen has been classified as a medium-security inmate at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County.

Killen's attorneys filed a motion earlier this month asking for an appeal bond and notifying the court that the case would be appealed.

Defense attorney Mitch Moran asked the court to consider such things as the length of Killen's residency in the community, his employment history, his financial condition, his reputation and his character.

Chaney, who was a black Mississippian, and Schwerner and Goodman, who were white New Yorkers, had traveled from Meridian to Neshoba County on June 21, 1964, to investigate the burning of a black church. They were stopped for speeding and were held for several hours in the Neshoba County Jail. After being released, they were ambushed a few blocks from the jail, chased several miles down a dark country highway and killed.

Killen is the only person to ever face state murder charges in the case.

The slayings of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman helped spur passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the FBI's massive investigation of the case was dramatized in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

In a federal conspiracy trial in 1967, several men were convicted of violating the civil rights of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. Killen walked free from that trial after one juror said she couldn't convict a preacher.

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Killen judge urges 6-month gag on jurors

The Sun Herald
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted on Fri, Jul. 29, 2005

PHILADELPHIA - The judge who presided over the trial that ended with the conviction of Edgar Ray Killen in the 1964 deaths of three civil rights workers wants a new state law to ban jurors from speaking about a case for six months after proceedings end.

Currently, only a grand jury has a six-month gag order.

Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon, speaking Wednesday at the Neshoba County Fair, said that while "lawyers and the parties in that case cannot go out and poll that jury and find out what happened... it doesn't apply to the media."

Gordon recently sentenced Killen, a one-time Ku Klux Klansman from Union, to 60 years for manslaughter in the deaths.

Jurors spoke with several media outlets after Killen was sentenced in Neshoba County. Gordon said allowing jurors to speak with reporters could inhibit future deliberations. Other jurors could become wary of sharing their true feelings, he said.

"I submit to you that that's an impediment to fairness and justice," Gordon said.

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