'Mississippi burning' trial begins

Testimony begins today in the murder trial of Edgar Ray Killen, a one-time Ku Klux Klansman charged with killing three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964.

The murders of Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, who were helping register black voters during the “Freedom Summer” of 1964 and were investigating a church burning the night they disappeared, galvanised the civil rights movement and helped win passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The case was dramatised in the 1988 film, Mississippi Burning, by Alan Parker.

A jury of four blacks and 13 whites was sworn in yesterday.

Prosecutors and the defence made opening statements lasting around 15 minutes at the courthouse in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Defence lawyer Mitch Moran acknowledged publicly for the first time that Killen was in the Ku Klux Klan at the time of the killings.

“Mr Killen has denied in his own way being involved in the Klan,” Mr Moran told the jury panel. “For the sake of this trial, we’re going to assume he was in the Klan. The Klan’s not on trial here. Being a member of the Klan is not on trial here.”

Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon told the jury that what is done in the trial will make history.

“What we do here will be forever recorded in the history of Neshoba County and you and I, when this case is over, should be proud of ourselves, should be proud of the work done here in this courtroom,” he said.

The revived investigation and trial represents Mississippi’s latest attempt to deal with unfinished business from violence that accompanied the civil rights movement decades ago.

In a measure of how much things have changed over the past 41 years, the jury pool contained whites, blacks and members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, whose reservation is nearby.

In 1964 when the victims were murdered, very few blacks were registered to vote in Neshoba County, and juries were usually all-white.

Killen, who remains free on bail, was tried along with several others in 1967 on charges of violating the victims’ civil rights.

The all-white jury deadlocked in Killen’s case, but seven others were convicted. A juror in that case was later quoted as saying she could not convict Killen because he was a preacher.

District Attorney Mark Duncan said the fact Killen preached should play no part in their decision.

“I think we are all sinners, aren’t we? Some just worse than others,” he said.