Killen Convicted of Manslaughter in 1964 Slayings (Update4)

June 21 (Bloomberg) -- Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former
preacher, was convicted of manslaughter in the 1964 deaths of
three civil-rights workers in Mississippi after jurors rejected murder
charges pressed by prosecutors.

Killen was accused of organizing Ku Klux Klan members who
ambushed and killed James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and
Michael Schwerner outside Philadelphia, Mississippi. State
Attorney General Jim Hood won Killen's indictment in
January, reviving the case after pleas from the victims'
relatives. The verdict comes on the 41st anniversary
of the trio's disappearance. ``I hope that this conviction
helps to shed some light on what has happened in this state,''
Rita Bender, 63, Schwerner's widow, said at a press
conference following the verdict. ``I see it as a very
important first step.''

The deaths helped galvanize support for the movement to
win voting rights for blacks and became the subject of
the 1988 film ``Mississippi Burning.'' Killen's attorneys
acknowledged for the first time during the trial that he
had belonged to the Klan. A federal jury found in
1967 that the white-supremacist group had ordered
Schwerner's death.

Jurors told Judge Marcus Gordon late yesterday that
they were split 6-6 on murder charges after the first
few hours of deliberations. Killen faces a maximum
of 20 years in prison on each of the three manslaughter
counts. Murder convictions would have carried
potential life sentences.

Hood lauded the verdict as ``justice for all in Mississippi.''
The attorney general had attempted to bring to trial the
eight survivors of 18 men accused in 1967 of taking
part in the killings. Of those still alive, Killen was the
only one indicted. `This murder was not sanctioned
by God,'' Hood said. ``It was sanctioned by evil men
and one of them will have to pay for that crime now.''

Killen who suffers from osteoarthritis, was remanded
to the custody of the sheriff's department after the
verdict and taken from the courtroom in a wheelchair.
``He'll spend the rest of his life in jail,'' said Derrick
Johnson, president of the Mississippi NAACP.

Gordon told spectators to remain quiet before the
verdict, noting that it came on the anniversary of
the disappearance of the three civil-rights
workers, who were in Mississippi to register black
voters. The trial in Philadelphia, a town of about
7,300 people, attracted international media coverage.
``There's always a lot of feeling and emotion in the
trial of any case, and certainly of a case such as this,''
Gordon said, warning spectators that about 17 uniformed
state troopers and local police officers were on guard
to quell outbursts.

The three victims had been arrested by police and
released, then caught and killed by Klansmen, according
to investigators. Chaney, 21, who was black, was
beaten to death. Goodman, 20, and Schwerner, 24,
both white, were shot. Their bodies were found after
a 44-day search, buried in an earthen dam. Hood told
jurors that Killen at the time led a new Klan chapter
in nearby Meridian. Killen rounded up volunteers for
a church-burning that Schwerner's group was
investigating and gave orders on the day of the
ambush, including a command to buy gloves,
Hood said.

``All things considered, I think the compromise of
three counts of manslaughter was the best that we
can hope for,'' said Connie Curry, 70, a writer and
filmmaker who met Schwerner while spending the
summer of 1964 in Jackson, Mississippi, helping
to desegregate schools. ``It's good for the soul
of this country to have people brought to
justice, even 40 or 50 years later.''

One of Killen's attorneys, Mitchell Moran, argued
during the trial that his client was only a ``bystander''
in the Klan. Moran instead blamed the murders
on former Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, now
serving a life sentence for a 1966 firebombing
that killed civil-rights activist Vernon Dahmer.
Killen was among 18 men charged in the 1967
federal case with violating the activists' civil rights.
Seven were convicted, including Bowers, and
Killen's case ended in a hung jury after one juror
refused to convict a preacher. The other 10, including
the county sheriff, were acquitted. ``This is the beginning
of the healing of Mississippi,'' said Deborah Owen,
a Philadelphia resident. ``For once, the state of
Mississippi says, `We acknowledge the past.'''

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ObTredneckracistsandkukluxklansmengowild: If this tasty news was not
bad enough, the bankrupt Winn-Dixie said today
it will close about a-third of its stores (including all of
its Virginia stores) with a net loss of 22,000 of 78,000 jobs.

I figure with both of these stories hitting on the same day should
be just enuf to put a whole lot of ignorant white trailer trash poebuckers
over-the-edge in the comming days....