Post by pelicanguy on Apr 3, 2007 9:33:08 GMT -5
Court to give Seale new trial date
* Judge may reset trial, decide on change of venue Thursday
The Associated Press
U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate has scheduled a hearing for Thursday to rule on several outstanding motions in the postponed trial of reputed Ku Klux Klansman James Ford Seale, who is accused of kidnapping in connection with the 1964 slayings of two black men.
The trial had been set to begin today.
Wingate also told The Associated Press a new court date could be set on Thursday.
One of the motions Wingate said he will rule on is whether to grant a change of venue. Seale's defense attorneys say he can't get a fair trial in Jackson because of publicity about his arrest. Wingate gave no indication what his decision would be.
Seale was arrested Jan. 24 at the home of a family member, where he was living in a recreational vehicle, in the southwest Mississippi town of Roxie.
He pleaded not guilty the next day to two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy. He is being held without bond in the Madison County jail.
Seale could be sentenced to up to life in prison if convicted in the case, which is tied to the deaths of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee.
Prosecutors said Moore and Dee were hitchhiking when they were seized and beaten by Klansmen, then weighted down and thrown into the Mississippi River.
Seale and reputed KKK member Charles Marcus Edwards were arrested in 1964.
But the FBI - consumed by the search for three civil rights workers who had disappeared from east central Mississippi's Neshoba County that summer - turned the case over to local authorities, who promptly threw out all charges.
The Justice Department in 2000 reopened the investigation into the slayings of Moore and Dee.
It is the latest of several cold cases from the civil rights era to be reopened in the South in recent years.
* Judge may reset trial, decide on change of venue Thursday
The Associated Press
U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate has scheduled a hearing for Thursday to rule on several outstanding motions in the postponed trial of reputed Ku Klux Klansman James Ford Seale, who is accused of kidnapping in connection with the 1964 slayings of two black men.
The trial had been set to begin today.
Wingate also told The Associated Press a new court date could be set on Thursday.
One of the motions Wingate said he will rule on is whether to grant a change of venue. Seale's defense attorneys say he can't get a fair trial in Jackson because of publicity about his arrest. Wingate gave no indication what his decision would be.
Seale was arrested Jan. 24 at the home of a family member, where he was living in a recreational vehicle, in the southwest Mississippi town of Roxie.
He pleaded not guilty the next day to two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy. He is being held without bond in the Madison County jail.
Seale could be sentenced to up to life in prison if convicted in the case, which is tied to the deaths of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee.
Prosecutors said Moore and Dee were hitchhiking when they were seized and beaten by Klansmen, then weighted down and thrown into the Mississippi River.
Seale and reputed KKK member Charles Marcus Edwards were arrested in 1964.
But the FBI - consumed by the search for three civil rights workers who had disappeared from east central Mississippi's Neshoba County that summer - turned the case over to local authorities, who promptly threw out all charges.
The Justice Department in 2000 reopened the investigation into the slayings of Moore and Dee.
It is the latest of several cold cases from the civil rights era to be reopened in the South in recent years.