Justice Delayed
Kudos to prosecutors in Philadelphia, Mississippi, for finally bringing murder charges against white supremacist and long-suspected lynch mob killer Edgar Lee Killen. Jury selection began yesterday, even as a KKK Imperial Wizard welcomed Killen to the courthouse. Killen, a former KKK recruiter, is accused of organizing the kidnapping and murder of three civil rights workers who vanished in backwoods Mississippi on June 21, 1964, in one of the most infamous crimes of the era. Forty-four days later their bodies were found, and forty-one years later, Killen, who previously went free after a racially charged hung jury failed to deliver a verdict in the 60s, is finally going to give account for his hatred. Some have decried prosecuting Killen, now 80 and ailing, claiming that it's unjust to put a man his age through the rigors of a trial and possible prison sentence. But justice delayed is better than justice denied. As the New York Times quoted one local, "If they'd done the right thing 40 years ago, they wouldn't have to be fussing with it now."
posted by Jeremy Del Rio @ 6/14/2005 09:40:00 AM
1 Comments:
I found this at the L.A. Times website today.
In his opening statement, Mississippi Atty. Gen. Jim Hood said testimony would show that Killen, a preacher, encouraged church members to join the Ku Klux Klan.
Killen "told them that God sanctions it," Hood said.
Sad.
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