When was medgar evers killer convicted

A cheer went up from spectators in the courtroom gallery as the verdict was read. Breland Hilburn handed down the mandatory sentence. Despite likely appeals, which a prosecutor acknowledged could keep Beckwith out of prison for the rest of his life, Myrlie Evers said the conviction fulfilled the promise she had made to her late husband to seek justice in his death.

She has been present for nearly every hearing or major development in the case since then. She wept when the verdict was read Saturday and grasped the hand of her daughter, Reena Evers-Everett, while her eldest son, Darrell Kenyatta Evers, applauded.

After rushing from the courtroom in tears, Myrlie Evers sought a few moments of seclusion with her family. She was still jubilant when she spoke to reporters. Beckwith ordinarily would be eligible for parole in 10 years, but he might be eligible sooner because he remained in jail for more than a year while awaiting his most recent trial.

An appeal, however, is widely expected. The jury, made up of eight African Americans and four whites, deliberated for more than six hours Friday and Saturday before reaching a verdict. The jurors, who had been chosen miles north of Jackson in Panola County, were taken home by bus. Upon disembarking in front of the Panola County Courthouse, they told reporters they had agreed not to talk about the case. Evers, the year-old field secretary for the NAACP, had been a highly visible crusader against segregation and for equal rights for African Americans.

The all-male, all-white jury heard multiple arguments that Beckwith could not have murdered Evers, including an elaborate alibi and claims that three men, not one, carried out the murder. And they came back with a deadlock that gave Beckwith an automatic mistrial. A second trial, during which the Ku Klux Klan packed the gallery and burned crosses around Jackson, resulted in the same verdict.

A third trial was planned, but never carried out, and the trials were eventually dismissed. The state of Mississippi seemed uninterested in pursuing justice. In the meantime, Myrlie poured her anger into the civil rights causes Medgar had championed.

But whenever she came back, she asked what had been done to put Beckwith behind bars and pressed officials to keep looking for new evidence.

Then, in , she spoke to Jerry Mitchell, a Jackson newspaper reporter who told her he had found evidence that the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state agency that had secretly been given authority to investigate and intimidate civil rights movement leaders, had surveilled Medgar and conducted secret background checks on jurors.

When the news broke, she asked the state prosecutor to reopen the case. Despite a missing murder weapon, legal uncertainty about whether Beckwith could be tried again so many years after the crime, and a case file just three pages long , he did. Then more evidence emerged. New witnesses can become difficult to locate the older a case becomes. In , Beckwith finally stood for his third trial. United Artists quickly gained prestige in Hollywood, thanks to the On February 5, , Georgia formally adopts a new state constitution and becomes the first U.

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