Mississippi Burning - Justice Delayed *IS* Justice Denied.

Reputed Klansman insists he is not guilty in 'Mississippi Burning' murder case

07/01/2005

Reputed Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen responded loudly with “not guilty” three times today as he was arraigned on murder charges in relation to the notorious "Mississippi Burning" case.

Killen, handcuffed and dressed in a loosely fitting orange jail jump-suit, lowered his voice when asked if he could afford a lawyer. He was then led off to the county jail pending another hearing next Wednesday.

Soon after Killen’s arraignment the courthouse in Philadelphia, Mississippi, was cleared by police who said they had received a bomb threat.

Sheriff Larry Myers said that Edgar Ray Killen was arrested at his Mississippi home. Myers said there would be more arrests in connection with the killings, which were dramatised in the 1988 movie “Mississippi Burning.”

In 1964, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, who were helping to register black voters, were murdered on a lonely dirt road as they drove to a church to investigate a fire.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57434-2005Jan7.html

" "I said the stereotypic words: 'At last!' " said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who as a law student went to Mississippi in 1963 to work with SNCC creating model freedom schools that taught voting rights. The freedom schools laid the groundwork for the following year's Freedom Summer, in which students from across the nation headed to the state for a voting rights project.

Norton said she did not believe there would ever be an arrest in the case of the three young activists whose killings opened the country's eyes to the brutality with which segregation was being enforced. Schwerner and Goodman were white New Yorkers; Chaney, who was black, was from Mississippi.

"It diminishes the level of justice to come so long after the killings," she added. "The ones who deserve justice, the ones most closely hurt, are dead now. And those who aren't have been living with this pain without any justice being done. But pursuing justice, even justice delayed, is a gain."

I remember the murders very well. I was still a conservative, anti-Civil-Rights guy back then (influence of my parents and my church). I think this incident was the beginning of my change in attitude.

speaking out against voter disenfranchisement FORTY YEARS LATER. Forty years... and its still okay to dissuade a populace from casting a vote. The derision from the right is all the more galling.

Killen free on bond in '64 case

BY JOHN MORENO GONZALES
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

January 13, 2005

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. -- To the shock of local residents who lobbied for his arrest, Edgar Ray Killen, the 79-year-old man charged with engineering the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, was ordered released on bond yesterday by a circuit court judge who also set a March trial date.

Newsday also learned that Killen's defense attorney was arrested in September 2003 on suspicion of buying methamphetamine from an informant. Federal authorities never brought the case against Mitch Moran to trial, nor did state prosecutor Mark Duncan, who is prosecuting Killen.

Killen posted the $250,000 bond using family lands as collateral and returned to his home on Road 515. The country pass once known as Rock Cut Road is also where the murders of civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman took place.

"His spirits are good. In fact, he has a sense of humor," Moran said of Killen.

Moran acknowledged that he had been arrested in the Sept. 17 incident, but denied ever buying illegal drugs. He said the arrest was made by Leake County, Miss., sheriffs angry at him for defending drug dealers.