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The Mississippi Burning Trial v . nited States vs. Price et al.): A Trial A _/Unt
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A jury of seven white men and five white women, ranging in ages from 34 to 67, was selectedflink to list of iurorsl. Defense attorneys exercised peremptory challenges against all seventeen potential black jurors. A white man, who admitted under questioning by Robert Hauberg, the U.S. Attorney for Mississippi, that he had been a member of the KKK "a couple of years ago," was challenged for cause. Judge Cox denied the challenge.
The defense made a major mistake as John Doar presented background witnesses for the prosecution. When Doar finished his direct examination of Reverend Charles Johnson, who worked with Schwerner, Defense Attorney Laurel Weir launched into a series of outrageous questions culminating with a question asking whether Johnson had sought to "get young Negro males to sign a pledge to rape a white woman once a week during the hot summer of 1964?" Judge Cox broke in to say that such a question was "highly improper" unless the defense could show a reason for posing it. When Weir said the question had been passed to him in writing, Cox demanded to know who wrote it. Finally one of the defense attorneys admitted that "Brother Killen," defendant Edgar Ray Killen, had written the question. The incident made clear to the defendants that Judge Cox, who may have mellowed somewhat after a recent unsuccessful impeachment effort against him in Congress, was taking the trial seriously.
The heart of the government's case was presented through the testimony of three Klan informants, Wallace Miller, Delmar Dennis, and James Jordan. Miller described the organization of the Lauderdale klavern and described his conversations with Exalted Cyclops Frank Herndon and Kleagle Edgar Ray Killen about the June 21 operation in Neshoba County. Dennis incriminated Sam Bowers, the founder and Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the KKK of Mississippi. Dennis quoted Bowers as having said after the killing of Schwerner and the two others, "It was the first time that Christians had planned and carried out the execution of a Jew." It was also through Dennis that the government introduced the contents a letter written by Bowers but pretending to be from an official of a logging company referring to the murders as "the big logging operation" and to the suspects of the FBI investigation as "those deep in the swampfLINK TO KKK LOGGING LETTER!." At another point in his testimony, Dennis described a Klan meeting in the pasture of Klan member Clayton Lewis. He then pointed to Lewis, the mayor of Philadelphia, sitting at the defense table as a member of the twelve-man defense team. James Jordan was the government's only witness to the actual killings. Fearing a Klan assassination, the government had arranged to have Jordan hustled into court by five agents with guns drawn. After first requiring hospitalization for hyperventilating, and then collapsing and having to be carried from the courtroom on a stretcher, an obviously nervous Jordan finally made it to the witness stand. Jordan described the events of June 21 and the early morning of June 22, from the gathering of Klan members in Meridian to the burial of the bodies at the Old Jolly Farm. His vivid testimony caused one black female spectator to break down and have to be led from the courtroom, sobbing.
The defense case consisted of a series of alibi and character witnesses. Local residents testified as to the "reputation for truth and veracity" of various defendants, or to having seen them on June 21 at locations such as funeral homes or hospitals.
John Doar presented the closing argument for the government on October 18.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Account.html
6/18/2013