United States v. Price

"United States v. Cecil Price, et al." ussc|383|787|1966, also known as the "Mississippi Burning" trial, was arguably one of the most famous criminal trials in American history. The United States charged a group of 18 men with conspiring in a Ku Klux Klan plot to murder three young civil rights workers (Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman) in Philadelphia, Mississippi on June 21, 1964 (see Mississippi civil rights workers murders). The trial, conducted in Meridian, Mississippi with U.S. District Court Judge W. Harold Cox presiding, resulted in convictions of 7 of the 18 defendants.

The verdict

Guilty verdicts were returned against:

* Cecil Price, the chief deputy sheriff of Neshoba County
* Sam H. Bowers, Jr., of Laurel, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
* Horace Doyle Barnette, a one-time Meridian salesman
* Jimmy Arledge, a Meridian truck driver
* Billy Wayne Posey, a Williamsville service station operator
* Jimmie Snowden, a Meridian laundry truck driver
* Alton W. Roberts, a Meridian salesman

Not guilty verdicts were returned for:

* Lawrence A. Rainey, the sheriff of Neshoba County
* Bernard L. Akin, a Meridian housetrailer dealer
* Travis M. Barnette, a Meridian mechanic and half-brother of Horace Doyle Barnette
* James T. Harris, a Meridian truck driver
* Frank J. Herndon, the operator of a Meridian drive-in restaurant
* Olen L. Burrage, the owner of the farm on which the bodies of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman were buried
* Herman Tucker, the builder of the dam in which the bodies were found
* Richard A. Willis, a one-time Philadelphia policeman

No verdict was reached for:

* Edgar Ray Killen, a fundamentalist minister and sawmill operator, however on June 21 2005 he was found guilty of 3 counts of manslaughter
* Ethel Glen Barnett, the Democratic nominee for Neshoba County sheriff
* Jerry McGrew Sharpe, a pulpwood hauler

The jury

An all-white, mostly working-class jury consisting of five men and seven women heard the case. The jurors were:

* Langdon Smith Anderson (foreman), a Lumberton oil exploration operator and member of the State Agricultural and Industrial Board
* Mrs. S.M. Green, a Hattiesburg housewife
* Mrs. Lessie Lowery, a Hiwannee grocery store owner
* Howard O. Winborn, a Petal pipefitter
* Harmon W. Rasberry, a Stonewall textile worker
* Mrs. Gussie B. Staton, a Union housewife
* Jessie P. Hollingsworth, a Moss Point electrician
* Mrs. James C. Heflin, a Lake production worker
* Mrs. Nell B. Dedeaux, a Lumberton housewife
* Willie V. Arneson, a Meridian secretary
* Edsell Z. Parks, a Brandon clerk
* Adelaide H. Comer, a cook at an Ocean Springs school cafeteria

Film adaptation

In 1988, a film was made based on the trial and the events surrounding it, entitled "Mississippi Burning". It starred Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as two FBI agents who travel to Mississippi to uncover the events surrounding the murder of three civil rights workers.

Several of the fictitious characters in the movie were based on real-life defendants in the trial. For instance, Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell (played by Brad Dourif) was based on Cecil Ray Price, Sheriff Ray Stuckey (played by Gailard Sartain) was based on Sheriff Lawrence Rainey, and Frank Bailey (played by Michael Rooker) was based on Alton W. Roberts. The film also starred R. Lee Ermey and Frances McDormand. Although nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, "Mississippi Burning" deeply offended civil rights workers in its heroic portrayal of the FBI. Prior to the 1964 murders, members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had frequently been beaten by police while in custody or during peaceful marches. SNCC members had sought protection from the FBI, even suing J. Edgar Hoover to demand that his agents enforce the 1960 Civil Rights Act. However, FBI agents, many of them Southerners who supported segregation, repeatedly refused to arrest those attacking civil rights workers. Hoover, who thought the Civil Rights movement to be largely Communist inspired, backed this policy. “We do not wet nurse those who go down to reform the South," Hoover said. As a result, many civil rights workers were savagely beaten while FBI agents did nothing more than take notes. When "Mississippi Burning" then showed the FBI as leaping into action in 1964, civil rights veterans were shocked by the distortion.

ee also

* List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 383

External links

* [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/jury.html Mississippi Burning trial information]