Boo Hoo
The L.A. Times has a story titled Killen Guilty of Manslaughter in 1964 Civil Rights Slayings:
A jury convicted Edgar Ray Killen on Tuesday in the slayings of three young civil rights workers, 41 years to the day after they were abducted by a gang of Mississippi Klansmen along a dark highway and shot to death.
I love this quote from the guy’s lawyer:
James McIntyre, Killen’s lawyer, said he planned to appeal the verdict. “I’m disappointed,” McIntyre said. “He did not get a trial before a jury of his peers, because his peers are all dead.”
Also because the only robe permitted in a court is the black one worn by the judge.
I’m glad you are reminding everyone how important it is that we still address that period of our history.
Brady Westwater (72f6df) — 6/22/2005 @ 1:27 pmTalking about contemporaneous and likeminded standards of judicial propriety, I suppose then that dragging behind a 1957 Chevy pickup would be about right as a punishment.
Just to be fair about it. 🙂
Paul Deignan (5c2874) — 6/22/2005 @ 3:59 pmManslaughter? That doesn’t sound right.
And why did this take 41 years?
Bostonian (4b120a) — 6/22/2005 @ 5:36 pmSounds like the argument a Fort Worth defense attorney put forth several years ago while defending a man accused of burying the woman alive. She survived after police got what was determined to be an illegal confession from her abductor and dug her up before her air and time ran out. The defense attorney claimed the victim’s testimony should be excluded because, if the police had waited and obtained the confession legally, she would not have been alive to testify.
Roofer (6aa84d) — 6/22/2005 @ 8:11 pmPatterico, you’re a lawyer. What was the defense attorney thinking who put this character witness on the stand only to say these gems?
“Back then, a warning from the Klan was enough to prompt a change in behavior.”
“The Klan would pay them a visit. The Klan would tell a man to straighten up, and if he didn’t, they would whip the devil out of him. They whipped more white people than black people.”
“…I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body.”
“They (the civil rights movement) were trying to force something on us. We weren’t ready for it.”
Insider (ee2e6f) — 6/23/2005 @ 9:52 am