Posted on 06/17/2005 8:09:52 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen told fellow Klansmen during a 1964 meeting to leave civil rights worker Michael Schwerner alone because another unit was assigned to eliminate him, a jury was told Friday.
The testimony, read by a member of the prosecution team, was given by Carlton Wallace Miller, a Klansman, Meridian police officer and FBI informant during a 1967 federal conspiracy trial of Killen and several other white men that led to seven convictions. The all-white jury couldn't agree on a verdict against Killen.
In that testimony, Miller said the local White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan chapter had discussed whipping Schwerner but Killen told them the killing of Schwerner had been approved by the group's Imperial Wizard.
Defense attorneys, who had to borrow a 1967 trial transcript from Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon, had portions of Miller's cross examination read that showed he had received money while working for the FBI. The defense also used questions from the transcript to show Miller had told prospective Klan members that the organization was legal.
Killen is on trial in the killings of James Chaney, a black Mississippian, and Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, white New Yorkers, who were in the town to investigate the burning of a black church. They were stopped for speeding, jailed for a few hours, then released, after which they were ambushed by a gang of Klansmen.
The 80-year-old Killen listened to the reading of the transcript, appearing much stronger than he had Thursday when he left court suffering from high blood pressure. He arrived in a car and was pushed in a wheelchair to the second floor courtroom.
Killen was hospitalized on the opening day of testimony Thursday, just before the widow of one of the victims led the jury through the events that sent her husband to Mississippi during the "Freedom Summer" of 1964. A few in the courtroom wiped away tears during the testimony.
Rita Schwerner Bender, 63, recalled the moment she learned that authorities had found the blue station wagon that her husband, Michael Schwerner, and the two other men were in when they disappeared. The burned car was abandoned in a swamp.
"I think it hit me for the first time that they were dead, that there was really no realistic possibility that they were alive," the Seattle woman said, occasionally looking as though she was fighting back tears.
The trial later went into recess.
Killen, a part-time preacher and sawmill operator, has attended court in a wheelchair while he recovers from broken legs suffered in a woodcutting accident. A nurse sits nearby in court. Killen was released from Neshoba County General Hospital in time to get to court. Doctors said Killen had suffered from elevated blood pressure and complained of a headache and discomfort in his chest.
Attorney General Jim Hood said prosecutors intend to prove that Killen planned the murders and helped round up Klansmen to chase down and kill the three.
They were then beaten and shot to death, and their bodies were found 44 days later buried in an earthen dam.
Rita and Michael Schwerner had been married just over a year and a half when they moved from New York to Mississippi in January 1964 to work in the civil rights movement. They lived in the homes of several black families in Meridian, moving frequently because the families were threatened.
Killen's name has been associated with the slayings from the outset. He could get life in prison if convicted in the state trial.
The defense does not dispute that Killen was a member of the Klan at the time of the slayings, but denies he had anything to do with the deaths.
Was he recruited into the Ku Klux Klan by Robert Byrd?
Not in any way defending the guy, but I am curious about how you get a fair trial if you can not cross examine witnesses.
I can understand situations where the prosecution might need to get testimony of a terminally ill patient prior to trial; but reading into the record 40 year old testimony from dead people, seems to me a bit of a constitutional (right to confront ones accusers) stretch.
Maybe someone with some legal knowledge can explain.
Bonus question, Why do basic constitutional protections seem to be suspended to prosecute ancient "race" crimes, when the courts seem to be willing to go to incredible lengths to find the most trivial reason to over turn current cases?
Why virtual suspension of the constitutional rights for people like John Demenjuk.
Why is, what seems to violate the clear intent and spirit of the constitutional ban on double jeopardy, allowed in cases like the Rodney King case. (I know Federal vs State prosecutions but doesn’t that produce exactly the abuse the framers were trying to prevent?)
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