James Ford Seale, the reputed Ku Klux Klan member serving three life sentences for his role in the 1964 abduction and murder of two black Mississippi teenagers, is disputing his conviction.
Seale was convicted June 14, 2007, of kidnapping and conspiracy in the abductions of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, both 19, who disappeared from Franklin County in Mississippi May 2, 1964. Their decomposed bodies were later pulled from the muddy waters of the Mississippi River.
On Monday, Kathy Nester, Seale's attorney, was expected to argue to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that federal prosecutors failed to prove key elements needed for conviction.
"Numerous issues were appealed, but we'll be focusing on whether the statute of limitations had expired, whether it was proper to bring in the extraneous issue of the Ku Klux Klan, and if there was federal jurisdiction," Nester told the Associated Press.
Nester said the defense believes prosecutors did not establish that Seale had crossed state lines during the commission of the crimes, which was vital because that's what gives the federal government jurisdiction in the case.
Seale, 72, is serving his sentences at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Seale was sent there so his health needs could be met, officials have said. He has cancer, bone spurs and other health problems.
A jury of eight whites and four blacks took two hours last year to reach the unanimous verdicts to convict Seale.
The prosecution's star witness was Charles Marcus Edwards, a confessed Klansman who received immunity from prosecution for his admitted role in the abductions for his testimony. Edwards testified that he and Seale were the only ones — who are still alive — who participated in the crime. Edwards said he and Seale were members of the same KKK chapter.
Edwards testified that he was absent later, but Seale told him about how Seale and other Klansmen bound Dee and Moore with tape, put them into a car trunk and drove them through part of eastern Louisiana to get to the area where the young men were dumped, still alive, into the river.
Their remains were identified by a few personal trinkets: Moore's Alcorn A&M College dormitory key, his golden stretch-band wristwatch and a belt buckle with the initial "M" and Dee's waterlogged draft card that remained in his wallet.
Seale was arrested on a state murder charge in 1964, but it was later dropped. Federal prosecutors say the state case was dropped because local law enforcement officers in 1964 were in collusion with the Klan.
The case was among many unsolved civil-rights-era crimes that state and federal prosecutors across the South have revived since the early 1990s. Wan J. Kim, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said that the FBI has compiled a list of more than 100 such cases.