US appeals court to hear 1964 Klan killings case

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Source: Associated Press

By HOLBROOK MOHR – 17 hours ago

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal appeals court agreed Friday to hear arguments that a reputed Ku Klux Klansman's conviction in the abductions of two black teenagers found slain in 1964 should not have been overturned.

James Ford Seale, 73, was convicted last year on kidnapping and conspiracy charges in the abduction of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee. Their remains were found in a Mississippi River backwater in 1964 when authorities were investigating the unrelated disappearance of three civil rights workers.

Seale, a former crop duster, was serving three life sentences when his conviction was overturned in September by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The panel ruled the statute of limitations for kidnapping had expired in the decades between the abductions and Seale's arrest.

Federal prosecutors appealed that decision. The full 5th Circuit has agreed to hear arguments in May before deciding whether to uphold the panel's ruling, which would allow Seale to walk out of a federal prison in Indiana ...

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