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- <text id=89TT3362>
- <title>
- Dec. 25, 1989: American Notes:Mississippi
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Dec. 25, 1989 Cruise Control:Tom Cruise
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 35
- American Notes
- MISSISSIPPI
- Second Look At Murder
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Civil rights advocates had given up hope that anyone would
- ever be punished for the murder of N.A.A.C.P. field secretary
- Medgar Evers, who was gunned down in Jackson, Miss., in 1963.
- Indicted in the killing was Byron de la Beckwith, a
- segregationist whose fingerprints were found on the murder
- weapon. But all-white juries twice failed to reach a verdict,
- and Beckwith went free.
- </p>
- <p> Recent reports by Jackson's Clarion-Ledger show that the
- Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a now defunct agency
- created by the state to battle desegregation, may have
- interfered in the jury selection for Beckwith's second trial.
- The newspaper found evidence that commission members relayed
- information about prospective jurors to Beckwith's lawyer.
- Assistant District Attorney Bobby DeLaughter is pushing for a
- new indictment, but that will not be easy. Many witnesses have
- died, and the murder weapon is missing.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-