Jury selection begins in 'Mississippi Burning' trial
Reputed Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen watched from a wheelchair today as jury selection began in his murder trial in one of most shocking crimes of the civil rights era – the 1964 slayings of three voter-registration volunteers that was later depicted in the movie “Mississippi Burning.”
The case against the 80-year-old Killen represents Mississippi’s latest attempt to deal with unfinished business from the state’s bloodstained racist past.
In a measure of how much things have changed over the past 41 years, about a third of the jury pool was black, roughly reflecting the racial makeup of the county’s 28,700 residents. In 1964, very few blacks were registered to vote in Neshoba County, and juries were usually all-white.
The slayings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner – three young men who were helping register blacks during the “Freedom Summer” of 1964 - galvanised the civil rights movement and helped win passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case was dramatised in the 1988 movie “Mississippi Burning.”
Security was tight as about 110 potential jurors were brought to the county courthouse on buses and ushered in through a side door. Another group is expected tomorrow. Summonses went out to about 400 people.
Killen, a part-time preacher who has been free on bail, looked straight ahead and said nothing as he was taken into the two-story, red-brick courthouse. Killen is in a wheelchair because of arthritis that was aggravated after his legs were broken in a tree-cutting accident in March. He sat silently inside the courtroom.
Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon asked potential jurors about such things as their health, their reading ability and any hardships they might face if they were picked for the case. By late morning, about three dozen people had been excused.
Streets near the courthouse in this town of about 7,300 were barricaded more than hour before jury selection started, and those entering the building had to pass through medal detectors. Inside the courtroom, as many as nine uniformed officers, including state troopers and sheriff’s deputies, stood guard.
There were no early demonstrations, but a man on hand for Killen’s arrival passed out business cards identifying himself as J.J. Harper of Cordele, Georgia, Imperial Wizard of the American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Inc. The man would not talk with reporters.
Among those at the courthouse was Chaney’s brother, Ben Chaney of New York, who has been the most vocal member of the family in seeking justice in the case.
Killen’s name has been associated with the slayings from the beginning. FBI records and witnesses indicated he organised the carloads of Klansmen who followed Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner and stopped them in their station wagon.
Chaney, a black man from Mississippi, and Schwerner and Goodman, white men from New York, were beaten and shot to death. Their bodies were found 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam.
Killen was tried along with several others in 1967 on federal charges of violating the victims’ civil rights. The all-white jury deadlocked in Killen’s case, but seven others were convicted. None served more than six years. Killen is the only person ever indicted on state murder charges in the case.
Opening arguments could start by Wednesday or Thursday
Defence lawyer James McIntyre said before entering the courthouse that it would be extremely difficult to seat a jury.
“Everybody in the world has known about this case through the news media, books and hearsay,” he said. “There’s no place on earth you can go where people haven’t heard about this case.” But eventually, he said, “I think the jury will acquit him.”
Journalists from as far away as Sweden applied for credentials to cover the trial, which will be televised by Court TV. The judge was offered extra security but said: “I’m not sure I want that. I’ve always been a two-fisted kind of guy.”
