None of my regular readers will be surprised that I believe the short news piece below about a racist murderer finally getting his due from hell is worth a bravo and a job-well-done--along with a snort of, 'It's about Goddamn time!'--even though its subject is not something that should be accompanied by applause or even an ounce of joy, but only with the comfort that some things are changing and being set right in the State I call home, Mississippi. It is from The New York Times.
However, just below that piece, is an article, also from The New York Times, that perpetuates my universal sadness and should remind us all that the time for due vigilance in these matters of justice corrupted and perverted is still very much at hand--in Mississippi.
The victims long ago passed from this life. They can be hurt no longer. That cannot be said for their families. It cannot be said for the men and women wrongly convicted of killing those victims who passed from this life with the taint of misjustice scarring their memory. It also cannot be said about our collective conscience, which should suffer the metaphorical pain of burning flesh until all of the virulent wrongs have been adjudicated in a court where law is the rule, not an arena of humankind's unholy penchant for prejudice against any class or race that makes the lesser of us feel greater by their dehumanization.
Ex-Klansman Is Sentenced To Life for Killings in 1964
By JERRY MITCHELL AND BRENDA GOODMAN Published: August 25, 2007
Calling the crime "unspeakable because only monsters could inflict this," a federal judge on Friday sentenced a former member of the Ku Klux Klan to three life terms in prison for his role in the 1964 kidnapping and murder of two black teenagers in Mississippi.
The case was one of several that focused a spotlight on white supremacist violenceduring the civil rights era.
The victims, Henry H. Dee and Charles E. Moore, both 19, were hitchhiking in Meadville, Miss., when a group of Klansmen, including James Seale, picked them up and took them to a wooded area, where they were beaten and their weighted bodies thrown into the Mississippi River. Both young men drowned.
Their bodies were not recovered until later that year in a high-profile search for three civil rights activists whose deaths generated widespread revulsion against the racial violence in Mississippi
"The pulse of this community still throbs with sorrow," Judge Henry T. Wingate of Federal District Court said as he imposed the sentence, which will effectively keep Mr. Seale, who is 72 and has cancer, behind bars for the rest of his life.
Judge Wingate asked Mr. Seale, who was shackled and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, if he wished to comment, but Mr. Seale declined. His lawyer, Kathy Nestor, said her client planned to appeal his conviction on kidnapping and conspiracy charges.
The main prosecution witness, a former Klansman who was granted immunity, testified. at Mr. Seale's trial that the defendant had told him he killed Mr. Dee and Mr. Moore. Mr. Seale was not charged with murder.
At Friday's sentencing, Mr. Moore's brother, Thomas, of Seattle, who has pushed for justice in the case since 1998, was given the opportunity to address Mr. Seale.
"When you took away Charles Moore, you took away my best friend," Thomas Moore said. "I cried when I thought about how hard they suffered at your hands."
Mr. Dee's sister, Thelma Collins, said her brother's killing "hurt us so bad I had to get a psychologist."
At a news conference after the sentencing, Assistant Attorney General Wan J. Kim said that some 100 cold cases from the civil rights era were awaiting investigation and possible prosecution, including 30 in Mississippi.
Judge Wingate said that he took into account Mr. Seale's advanced age and poor health. "But then I had to take a look at the crime itself, the horror, the ghastliness of it," he said, adding that he would agree to the defense recommendation that Mr. Seale serve his sentence at a medical facility.
The following article from The New York Times, excerpted and linked to, is why I and more than a few others say, 'No, we cannot forget or forgive!'
Kennedy Brewer was locked up for 15 years even though DNA tests in 2002 failed to show his DNA on a rape victim. Such cases are usually dropped. He greeted his mother after leaving jail.
Despite DNA Test, Prosecutor Is Retrying Case By SHAILA DEWAN Published: September 6, 2007
MACON, Miss., Aug. 31 -- The scene in the tiny Noxubee County jail on a rainy afternoon has become almost commonplace. Kennedy Brewer, sentenced to death and locked up for 15 years for the rape and murder of a 3-year-old, was released on the strength of a DNA test showing that the semen in the rape kit was not his.
The bail bondswoman snapped a Polaroid.
Mr. Brewer's sister, Martha, smiled and said, "I ain't got to mow the lawn no more."
Back home on Highway 388, two of Mr. Brewer's nieces sketched out a T-shirt design to read "Welcome Home Kenny."
But Mr. Brewer is not free and clear. He is only out on bail.
In a move that appears to be novel, prosecutors intend to retry him for the crime.
Virtually no effort has been made to find the man who raped the girl, Christine Jackson, and dumped her body in a creek in Noxubee County, one of the most rural in the state.
This is the first time prosecutors have sought a new capital murder trial after a conviction was overturned by DNA evidence, said Peter Neufeld, director of the Innocence Project, a legal aid group based in New York that has used DNA testing to exonerate the wrongly convicted since 1992. Usually such cases are simply dropped.
But prosecutors are not convinced of the innocence of Mr. Brewer, a black laborer who is mildly retarded. Forrest Allgood, the district attorney who first tried the case, said his theory then was that Mr. Brewer, who was the boyfriend of the victim's mother, acted alone.
At the trial, Mr. Allgood argued that the couple's bedroom was "the killing field," although traces of human blood found there were so small that they could not be tested.
His view has changed.
"I perceive that Kennedy Brewer assisted someone else in the killing of the child," Mr. Allgood said. "Whether he actually penetrated that child or not functionally doesn't make any difference if he was aiding, assisting and encouraging in her death."
Mr. Allgood declined to offer a new theory of what occurred the night Christine disappeared, saying only that Mr. Brewer was the baby sitter that evening and that there was no sign of forced entry at the house. [. . .]
The state's star witness was Dr. Michael West, a dentist from Hattiesburg who had become a controversial expert in the identification of bite marks. Dr. West's findings have been contradicted by DNA evidence in at least two other cases.
At the time of the trial, Dr. West had been suspended from the American Board of Forensic Odontology and had resigned from the American Academy of Forensic Science and the International Association of Identification, pending expulsion.
He testified that he had found 19 human bite marks on Christine's body, all made just by upper teeth, and that at least five of them were made by Mr. Brewer.
A defense expert, Richard Souviron, testified that the wounds were not human bite marks.
"Have you ever bitten off a piece of meat with just your top teeth and not used your bottom teeth?" Dr. Souviron asked. "t doesn't make any sense at all."
In 2005, Mr. Allgood informed the defense that a jailhouse informer had come forward, saying Mr. Brewer had told him that he was forced at gunpoint to bite Christine.
Note: It is journalistically prudent that I mention that Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld, the founders of The Innocence Project, are friends of mine whose work in such cases I greatly admire.
