Ex-Klansman Heads to Court for Sentencing

[Jahness]

Ex-Klansman Heads to Court for Sentencing

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS,
Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 9 minutes ago

One-time Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen faces up to 60 years in prison for masterminding the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, an event that galvanized the fight for racial equality in the Deep South.

Killen was scheduled to be back in court Thursday for sentencing, two days after being convicted on three counts of manslaughter 41 years after Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were killed.

Killen, 80, is the only person who has faced state murder charges in the case. He was tried on three murder counts, but at the request of prosecutors, Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon allowed jurors to also consider the lesser charge of manslaughter. He faces up to 20 years for each manslaughter conviction.

In sentencing, Gordon will consider Killen's 1975 conviction for threatening a woman over the telephone, a case that Gordon himself had prosecuted. Killen served five months in prison on the charge.

Gordon, who has a reputation among attorneys as a strict judge, also will consider a presentencing report on Killen's finances, and a health report that the judge requested from Killen's doctors. Killen uses a wheelchair because of a logging accident that broke both of his legs in March, and he had an oxygen tube up his nose during the reading of the verdict on Tuesday.

Gordon will not allow statements from the victims' or the defendant's families, District Attorney Mark Duncan said.

Defense attorney James McIntyre has said he will appeal, arguing that the jury should not have been allowed to consider manslaughter. Gordon will hear a motion for a new trial on Monday.

With a murder charge, prosecutors had to prove intent to kill and a conviction would have carried life in prison. With a manslaughter charge, prosecutors had to prove only that a victim died while another crime was being committed.

Chaney was a black Mississippian and Schwerner and Goodman were white New Yorkers. The three civil-rights volunteers were intercepted by Klansmen in their station wagon on June 21, 1964, and shot to death. After a massive FBI search, the bodies were found 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam.

The slayings helped spur passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the FBI's search for evidence was dramatized in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

Killen, a sawmill operator and part-time Baptist minister, has been held in Neshoba County Jail since his conviction.

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Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press.

[Draptomania]

Ex-Klansman Gets 60 Years for 1964 Murders By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writer




PHILADELPHIA, Miss. - One-time Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen was sentenced to 60 years in prison for masterminding the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, an event that galvanized the fight for racial equality in the Deep South.



Killen returned to court two days after being convicted on three counts of manslaughter 41 years after Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were killed. He received 20 years for each of the three counts of manslaughter.

Killen, 80, is the only person who has faced state murder charges in the case. He was tried on three murder counts, but at the request of prosecutors, Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon allowed jurors to also consider the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Gordon did not allow statements from the victims' or the defendant's families, District Attorney Mark Duncan said.

Defense attorney James McIntyre has said he will appeal, arguing that the jury should not have been allowed to consider manslaughter. Gordon will hear a motion for a new trial on Monday.

With a murder charge, prosecutors had to prove intent to kill and a conviction would have carried life in prison. With a manslaughter charge, prosecutors had to prove only that a victim died while another crime was being committed.

Chaney was a black Mississippian and Schwerner and Goodman were white New Yorkers. The three civil-rights volunteers were intercepted by Klansmen in their station wagon on June 21, 1964, and shot to death. After a massive FBI search, the bodies were found 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam.

The slayings helped spur passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the FBI's search for evidence was dramatized in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

Killen, a sawmill operator and part-time Baptist minister, has been held in Neshoba County Jail since his conviction.
__________________________________________________ _______________
I'm sick of this shyt....His old ass will don't know what the hell is going on. I can't even put into words the disgust I feel right now.

[Jahness]

Originally Posted by Draptomania

Ex-Klansman Gets 60 Years for 1964 Murders By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writer




PHILADELPHIA, Miss. - One-time Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen was sentenced to 60 years in prison for masterminding the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, an event that galvanized the fight for racial equality in the Deep South.



Killen returned to court two days after being convicted on three counts of manslaughter 41 years after Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were killed. He received 20 years for each of the three counts of manslaughter.

Killen, 80, is the only person who has faced state murder charges in the case. He was tried on three murder counts, but at the request of prosecutors, Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon allowed jurors to also consider the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Gordon did not allow statements from the victims' or the defendant's families, District Attorney Mark Duncan said.

Defense attorney James McIntyre has said he will appeal, arguing that the jury should not have been allowed to consider manslaughter. Gordon will hear a motion for a new trial on Monday.

With a murder charge, prosecutors had to prove intent to kill and a conviction would have carried life in prison. With a manslaughter charge, prosecutors had to prove only that a victim died while another crime was being committed.

Chaney was a black Mississippian and Schwerner and Goodman were white New Yorkers. The three civil-rights volunteers were intercepted by Klansmen in their station wagon on June 21, 1964, and shot to death. After a massive FBI search, the bodies were found 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam.

The slayings helped spur passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the FBI's search for evidence was dramatized in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

Killen, a sawmill operator and part-time Baptist minister, has been held in Neshoba County Jail since his conviction.
__________________________________________________ _______________
I'm sick of this shyt....His old ass will don't know what the hell is going on. I can't even put into words the disgust I feel right now.

Greetings Sis Draptomania!

Thanks so much for the update and the additional information on this story. As usual you are on tha case for the race.

Even though he got 60 years, he still won't really serve anytime. He lived his whole life free as a bird. Now that he is and old man, they will claim all type of illness to really stop him from serving any real time.

I hope he does make it to some jail cell where some Afrikans really makes him pay for his crimes. Justice from yt is always to late, it never is just.

I feel your disgust my sister. The crimes committed against us Afrikans are too many, and people paying for those crimes are too few. Even when they give out a sentence in this case it's a joke, because his old arse would probably die without serving a day.

Stay Blessed and thank you again for the update!

[Jahness]

Ku Klux Klan: racist group casts long shadow over US history


The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a racist and violent organization that massed as many as two million members in the 1920s, casts a long shadow over US history.

Founded in 1866 in the state of Tennessee, it brought together a small number of apologists for US slavery who took part in showy rituals bearing flaming torches, and wore white hoods and gowns often decorated with astrological signs.

The following year, the Klan became a paramilitary force under former Southern officers such as General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Imperial Wizard of the so-called invisible empire.

The Klan's goal at the time was to terrorize former slaves who won the right to vote in 1867. Members hoped to undo what the Civil War and voting booths had brought about.

This early Klan gradually faded away as Southern conservatives in time implemented a web of segregationist laws.

The year 1915 saw a new Klan emerge to take aim not only against blacks but also against Roman Catholics, whom it suspected of anti-US activities, as well as new immigrants and anyone it construed as an affront to moral order.

By the early 1920s, the Klan had attracted at least two million to its ranks. In August 1925, 40,000 Klan members marched outside the White House. Influential politicians were among its members.

Infighting and schisms rocked the movement until it had all but disappeared by the late 1930s.

By 1945, a new Klan had developed with a presence mainly in some Southern states. The 1960s civil rights era energized its protest activities.

But the group's violent stands clashed with mainstream US opinion and helped marginalize the Klan.

In 1963, four little girls were killed in a bomb blast at an Alabama church, and in 1964, three young civil rights activists were killed in Mississippi.

In the Mississippi crimes, jurors on Tuesday found former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen guilty on three counts of manslaughter, on the 41st anniversary of the murder of the three civil rights activists.

On Thursday, a judge sentenced Killen to the maximum 60 years in prison for the killings.

He had been tried in 1967 for the murder of Michael Schwerner, 24, Andy Goodman, 20, and James Chaney, 21, but the all-white jury was unable to reach a verdict after one member said she could not convict a preacher.


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Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse.