Ex-Klansman's Murder Case Goes to Jury

[Walter Cronkite]

Killen faces life in prison if convicted of murdering three civil rights workers who were helping Mississippi blacks register to vote

The murder case against a former Klansman charged in the slayings of three civil rights workers went to the jury Monday after prosecutors made an impassioned plea for a conviction, saying the victims' families have waited a long 41 years for someone to be brought to justice.

''Because the guilt of Edgar Ray Killen is so clear, there is only one question left,'' prosecutor Mark Duncan said in closing arguments. ''Is a Neshoba County jury going to tell the rest of the world that we are not going to let Edgar Ray Killen get away with murder any more? Not one day more.''

The 12 jurors - nine white and three black - deliberated the fate of 80-year-old Edgar Ray Killen for about two and a half hours Monday before going home without a verdict. At the end of the day, the judge polled jurors to determine how they were progressing, and the panel reported being deadlocked 6-6. The judge then told them to return Tuesday to resume deliberations.

In his closing argument, defense attorney James McIntyre said that while events that occurred in 1964 were horrible and he had sympathy for the families of the victims, ''the burden of proof does not reflect any guilt whatsoever'' on the part of Killen, who could get life in prison.

McIntyre acknowledged that Killen was once a Klan member, but added: ''He's not charged with being a member of the Klan, he's charged with murder.'' He then pointed out that no witnesses could put Killen at the scene of the crime. Killen did not take the stand.

''If you vote your conscience you are voting not guilty,'' he said. ''There is a reasonable doubt.''

The prosecutor said that while there was no testimony putting the murder weapon in Killen's hands, the evidence showed he was a Klan organizer and had played a personal role in preparations the day of the murders.

''He was in the Klan and he was a leader,'' Attorney General Jim Hood said.

The trial has reopened one of the most notorious chapters of the civil rights era.

The victims - James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner - were helping register black voters when they were ambushed by a gang of Klansmen. They were beaten and shot, and their bodies were found 44 days later buried in an earthen dam.

FBI records and witnesses indicated Killen organized carloads of men who followed Chaney, a black man from Mississippi, and Schwerner and Goodman, white men from New York.

Their disappearance focused the nation's attention on the Jim Crow code of segregation in the South and helped spur passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Hood noted that the men disappeared on June 21, 1964. He said families of the three men ''have waited 41 years - tomorrow it'll be 41 years - to see this case put before a jury on murder charges.''

''Those three boys and their families were robbed of all the things that Edgar Ray Killen has been able to enjoy for these last 40 years,'' Duncan said.

Killen was tried in 1967 along with several others on federal charges of violating the victims' civil rights. The all-white jury deadlocked in Killen's case, but seven others were convicted. None served more than six years.

The defense rested earlier Monday after a former mayor testified that the Klan was a ''peaceful organization.''

Harlan Majure, who was mayor of this rural Mississippi town in the 1990s, said Killen was a good man and that the part-time preacher's Klan membership would not change his opinion.

Majure said the Klan ''did a lot of good up here'' and said he was not personally aware of the organization's bloody past.

''As far as I know it's a peaceful organization,'' Majure said. His comment was met with murmurs in the packed courtroom.

Source: AP

[Harmon]

kill that piece of garbage....any clan member, or any racist for that matter and choke on there own blood for all i care

[Walter Cronkite]

Update: Ex-Klansman Convicted of Manslaughter

An 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman was convicted of manslaughter Tuesday in the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers - exactly 41 years after they disappeared.

The jury of nine whites and three blacks reached the verdict on their second day of deliberations, rejecting murder charges against Edgar Ray Killen.

Killen showed no emotion as the verdict was read. He was comforted by his wife as he sat in his wheelchair, wearing an oxygen tube. Heavily armed police formed a barrier outside a side door to the courthouse and jurors were loaded into two waiting vans and driven away.

Civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were ambushed on June 21, 1964. Their bodies were found 44 days later buried in an earthen dam. They had been beaten and shot.

The notorious case inspired the 1988 film ''Mississippi Burning.''

Prosecutors had asked the jury to send a message to the rest of the world that Mississippi has changed and is committed to bringing to justice those who killed to preserve segregation in the 1960s. They said the evidence was clear that Killen organized the attack on the three victims.

Killen's lawyers conceded he was in the Klan but said that did not make him guilty of murder. They pointed out that prosecutors offered no witnesses or evidence that put Killen at the scene of the crime. Killen did not take the stand, but has long claimed that he was at a wake at a funeral home when the victims were killed.

Killen, a part-time preacher and sawmill operator, was tried in 1967 on federal charges of violating the victims' civil rights. But the all-white jury deadlocked, with one juror saying she could not convict a preacher. Seven others were convicted, but none served more than six years.

Killen is only person ever brought up on murder charges in the case by the state of Mississippi.

Source: AP