Ping
Posted on 08/12/2005 11:04:28 AM PDT by WKB
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA, Miss. - A circuit judge on Friday granted Edgar Ray Killen $600,000 bond so the one-time Klan leader can be released from prison while he appeals manslaughter convictions in the killings of three civil rights workers.
Killen's family was trying to gather enough money or property to post the bond and get the 80-year-old part-time preacher released.
Killen was convicted June 21 for masterminding the 1964 slayings of civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. His conviction came 41 years to the day after the trio was mobbed and killed by Ku Klux Klansmen.
During Friday's hearing, Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon heard testimony from seven of Killen's friends and neighbors who said they believed Killen was neither a flight risk or a danger to the community.
Two black jailers who booked Killen into the Neshoba County Jail after his conviction testified that one of them asked Killen a standard question for new inmates - whether he was suicidal.
Jailer Kenny Spencer said Killen told him, "`I would kill you before I killed myself."
Spencer said he took the statement as a threat and that he reported the response to his immediate supervisor but not to the sheriff.
One of Killen's defense attorneys, James McIntyre, repeatedly asked Spencer whether he felt threatened by an elderly man in a wheelchair.
Spencer said that while he might not have felt physically threatened, he did feel mentally threatened.
Killen, who did not testify during his trial, did speak in court on Friday.
While being questioned by his other defense attorney, Mitch Moran of Carthage, Killen said he did not remember making such a statement to any jailer.
Moran said that if he had made such a statement would be serious or joking?
"Oh, it'd have to be joking," Killen responded. "I don't do those things."
In granting bond, Gordon cited previous cases that had been appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court. He said in this case he was convinced by testimony that Killen was not a flight risk or a danger to the community.
"It's not a matter of what I feel, its a matter of the law," Gordon said.
Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner - all in their 20s - were shot to death on a rural road in Neshoba County and buried several miles away in an earthen dam.
Witnesses testified that Killen, a local Klan leader at the time, helped round up Klansmen to attack the civil rights workers. Killen went to a Philadelphia funeral home as the attacks were taking place, witnesses said.
Killen had begun serving a 60-year sentence at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County.
Killen is the only person to ever face state charges in the killings that shocked the nation and helped spur passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The three civil rights workers were investigating the burning of a black church outside Philadelphia. They were stopped on an accusation of speeding and were held for several hours in the Neshoba County jail, then mobbed by Klansmen after their release. They were shot to death and their bodies were found 44 days later.
The case was dramatized in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."
Ping
"Spencer said that while he might not have felt physically threatened, he did feel mentally threatened."
Huh?
Wait a minute! He's already been convicted and NOW he gets to post bail?
"Jailer Kenny Spencer said Killen told him, "`I would kill you before I killed myself."
Stupid of him to joke like that.
"He said in this case he was convinced by testimony that Killen was not a flight risk or a danger to the community."
It's hard to flee when one is confined to a wheelchair.
Gordon has been a very good judge on this case.
I trust him.
"Huh?"
LOL!
Exactly my reaction. ;o)
"Maybe it's kinda like being mentally challenged?"
LOL! That works. ;o)
Mental deficit?
Wait a minute! He's already been convicted and NOW he gets to post bail?
Like you try to say
Nobody's Perfect.
You're fast and thorough!
Yeah but:
"Killen continues to recover from a woodcutting accident earlier this year that left him with two broken legs. On the stand, Killen complained that he had received inadequate medical attention while at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County and that the cot in his cell was causing his hip to hurt."
I almost feel sorry for the guy NOT.
Yeah- Cry me a river, Killen.
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