Judge refuses to delay Killen trial(1964 Mississippi Civil Rights Murders)

[Maddy McCall]

DUers, PLEASE take time to read this entire post, and then to thank the investigative reporter who got the ball rolling in the prosecution of this despicable monster.

Judge refuses to delay Killen trial

By Jerry Mitchell
[e-mail]

PHILADELPHIA — Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon today denied a defense request to delay the murder trial of accused Klansman Edgar Ray Killen, accused of orchestrating the 1964 lynchings of three civil rights workers.

The 80-year-old sawmill owner and part-time preacher goes on trial Monday in Neshoba County Circuit Court in the slayings of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, who had come to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 to help black residents register to vote.

(Maddy speaking: These are the heroic civil rights workers whose bodies were found in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. In a plan formed between Killen and his Klan, and the Neshoba Sheriff's Department, the boys were released from jail late at night with no police protection, and immediately thereafter intercepted by the Klan, then murdered and buried in the dam, where the FBI found later found them. The movie "Mississippi Burning" is based on this tragedy, although the FBI was nowhere nearly as proactive as the movie portrays, but that's another post. Now, back to the article...}

Killen's defense attorneys argued that Killen suffers from osteoarthritis in his knees and back and is uncomfortable sitting for long periods. Killen is recovering from a tree-cutting accident in March in which he broke both legs when a tree fell on his head.

More at: http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050608/NEWS010702/50608004


Background info on this case:

Emotions high as reputed Klan leader's trial nears http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050607/NEWS010702/506070372/1002/NEWS01

Long After Southern Killing, Lines Converge in Queens http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/01/nyregion/01about.html?ex=1118462400&en=37d01b17d2fe6327&ei=5070&oref=login

Poll: 83% of Mississippians Support Reprosecution in Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner Case http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050529/NEWS010702/505290379/1002/NEWS01

Here is Edgar Ray Killen:


Killen, the only conspirator of the murders who is still alive, is pissed and says that prosecution is unfair, because he won't be tried by "a jury of my peers." In other words, he knows that the racist white southerners who would have let him off in 1964 are now dead, and the jury he now faces won't let him off. http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050519/NEWS010702/505190371/1002/NEWS01

Here are Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney:


God rest their souls. These men gave everything for a New South. So sad that they aren't here now to see the progress in this state, for which they gave their lives.

Here is Jerry Mitchell, the investigative reporter for the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion Ledger, whose investigative work led to the prosecution of Killen:



For his work, Mitchell has been presented with the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service, the Sidney Hillman Award, Gannett’s William Ringle Outstanding Achievement Career Award, and the Heywood Broun Award, among others. He was among journalists honored in 1998 by the Anti-Defamation League at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., for “their courage and conviction that the world must know of the brutality of hatred, injustice, and inhumanity.”

Read an interview with Jerry Mitchell here: http://www.chipsquinn.org/skills/learning/learning_mitchell.htm

Here is a Clarion Ledger front page, with vast contributions from Mitchell.



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Duers, PLEASE WRITE JERRY HERE: [e-mail] AND THANK HIM FOR HIS JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY!

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[Rowdyboy]

1. Best news I've heard all day! Thanks for the heads-up!

Lets put that filthy old bastard where he belongs-general population in Parchman where, hopefully, he will share quarters with a very large.......well, you get my gist.

[Maddy McCall]

2. I agree, Rowdy!

I usually have a soft spot in my heart for elderly folks, but this bastard deserves the punishment that awaits him, and none can be too severe!

[Selatius]

3. It's about time for justice to be served.

It's time to close an ugly chapter in Mississippi history. It's a shame it took this long though, an absolute shame.

[Maddy McCall]

7. Better that it happen now than NEVER.

It's not a southern phenomenon, by any stretch. Racist murders happened all over this nation and have yet to be prosecuted. Actually, Mississippi is at the vanguard of reprosecuting people in old Civil Rights cases. So, therefore, you can look at us as progressive on this issue.

By confronting our past, we are dealing with it. Tis better than to sweep it under the rug and forget about it, as other states have done.

[Selatius]

9. Well, I've been living here in Mississippi, and frankly, I don't like it

I want to leave this state when I finish school.

As a socialist with an intense libertarian streak, I find myself isolated, my ideas attacked, and even once watched some of my Democratic friends victimized by arson because of their political affiliation. It's not a place I want to raise my kids in, and I'll be damned if I get killed in this state.

I have to applaud the prosecution of these racist fools, and I give due credit where credit is deserved. On the issue of prosecution of civil rights crimes and the KKK, this state is as progressive as any, but as far as progressivism goes in too many other aspects, this state is appallingly lacking.

I've traveled up and down this state enough times to ask myself why they keep voting against their own interests.

I look at the Delta in Mississippi, and I'm simply saddened to the point of tears at the level of poverty many people, especially Blacks, have to live in out there, and I've talked to people who are still, to this day, so scared to travel certain roads in certain places for the fact that they are the wrong skin color.

I was appalled that so many people of this state would vote to pass a law that explicitly targets and discriminates against homosexuals. I found it disgraceful and something worthy of condemnation. This state, instead of passing laws to attack one minority group because of skin color, now passed a law attacking another minority group because of how they live.

I ask myself why, and I could rip myself to shreds trying to find an answer. It absolutely kills me.

[Maddy McCall]

12. You're in Starkville?

I've never been in as desolate a place as Cow Tech. I don't blame you, I'd want to get out of there, too.

Fortunately, I have good liberal friends in my area, and all around the state. Just traveling around the state, you wouldn't see that.

There aren't many states where socialism is openly accepted, and, your prospects of finding a state that permits gay marriage are also as dim. Mississippi isn't alone in passing that law. I'm not being a smart-ass...just being frank.

BTW, I don't think Mississippi is perfect--FAR from it--but I am tremendously proud of my fellow Mississippians who have struggled for change. Tremendously proud. Those are the ones, black and white, with whom I associate EVERY day.

Maybe we can continue to discuss the problems in our state which concern you in the Mississippi state forum. I'd be more than happy to meet you there and to discuss any topic you want. That forum should be much more active than it is. (I'm not trying to shut down discussion in this thread, by any means, but I surely would like to see us discuss more issues in the Mississippi forum.)

And, maybe you and I will cross paths some day, so that at least, when you leave Mississippi, you can say that you met a very liberal, open-minded person there. :D

[TacticalPeek]

4. Law and order his ass.

Parchman Farm in summer will be good practice for Hell.

[Syrinx]

5. damn, he *looked* like the stereotypical racist asshole didn't he?

Justice delayed, they say, is justice denied. But it's better than nothing.

[xmas74]

6. Proof that justice can be served.

It is time for a New South to rise from the ashes of its less than wonderful past. With examples like this being set we have proof that one area of our country is finally ready to do something about equality and race relations. Thank goodness!
Let's prove that this isn't the end. I hope to see that this is the beginning of what can be. We can be equal. We can be united for the common good. Justice can be brought forward. The South can be the beacon for all that this country needs to accomplish.

Hell itself isn't good enough for that bastard!

And my thank you is on its way to the investigative reporter.

[Maddy McCall]

8. Thanks for writing to Jerry!

He's one good guy. I've met him several times, and I've heard him speak. He's sharp as a tack and we Mississippians are fortunate to claim him. :D

[xmas74]

11. No problem.

I love to give my support when someone does a great job.

[Maddy McCall]

10. TRIAL TO BE TELECAST FROM START TO FINISH ON COURT TV!

Everyone, you can watch the prosecution of this bastard on Court TV. They will have live feed of the entire trial. I just found this out.

You can watch history in the making. I'll be glued to the TV for the next month or so.

http://www.neshobademocrat.com/Main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=297&ArticleID=10452

[ngGale]

13. Yep, I've been trying to tell people...

the KKK had preachers and members who went to church every time the doors were open. Kind of the type we are spawning all over again. Hate mongers, I hope he rots in hell. I remember this and saw the movie and I don't give a tinker's damn how old he is. I shall be watching Court TV while thinking of his victims.

A big thank you to Jerry Mitchell!

[Mairead]

14. The judge is doing it perfectly: comfy chair, RN on duty, bed

where Killen can go and take a break whenever he likes, the willingness to recess as often as necessary. He's seeing to it that the defence can't claim on appeal that Killen wasn't treated with deference.

If Killen did the crime, then I can only hope he worries about the death penalty every moment of the trial.

[Maddy McCall]

15. I agree with Rowdy's suggestion above.

Put him in general pop at Parchman with the people he abhores the most. Let them provide final justice to him.

[yurbud]

16. AP Killen story made me write Philadelphia

I saw this AP story today on the Killen trial:

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. Jun 11, 2005 — Hicks. Rednecks. Racists. People who live in this town of 7,300 have heard the epithets slung their way for decades. And many black and white cringe as they anticipate how the world will view their town when reputed Ku Klux Klansman and part-time preacher Edgar Ray Killen goes on trial Monday in the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=840322">(the rest of the story)

It struck me as ironic that they thought people would think ill of them for doing the right thing, so I dashed off this quick letter to the local paper there:

To:http://www.neshobademocrat.com/main.asp?FromHome=1&TypeID=1&ArticleID=10464&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=297">The Neshoba Democrat
Philadelphia, Mississippi

I just read the Associated Press piece on the upcoming trial of Edgar Ray Killen which said some residents were concerned it would reinforce stereotypes of the South as racist. It does not. The effect is the exact opposite.

I have lived my entire life in Oregon and California, so my direct knowledge of the South is limited to the occasional segregated prom or confederate flag story in the news, which naturally makes me and many others suspect that white Southerners at best barely tolerate their black neighbors being treated like human beings.

These murder cases from the Civil Rights era reinforce that impression only to the extent that they go unpunished. The trial of Killen and previous trial of the killer of Medgar Evers is a sign that the majority in the South want the wrongs of Jim Crow to be a part of our history not an open wound easily rubbed raw when someone accidentally brushes against it.

What you are doing is something all Americans should be proud of. It's more honorable to see a problem and fix it than to pretend that things are perfect--and always have been. You are setting an example I hope the rest of us follow.

I hope this isn't indirectly insulting, because I only meant it in the most positive sense.


Hillbilly Hitler art:



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