[Senate Report 110-88]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
Calendar No. 211
110th Congress Report
SENATE
1st Session 110-88
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EMMETT TILL UNSOLVED CIVIL RIGHTS CRIME ACT
_______
June 22, 2007.--Ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Leahy, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following
R E P O R T
[To accompany S. 535]
[Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]
The Committee on the Judiciary, to which was referred the
bill (S. 535), to establish an Unsolved Crimes Section in the
Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and an
Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Investigative Office in the Civil
Rights Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and for
other purposes, reports favorably thereon, with an amendment in
the nature of a substitute and recommends that the bill, as
amended do pass.
CONTENTS
Page
I. Purpose of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.......1
II. History of the Bill and Committee Consideration.................12
III. Section-by-Section Summary of the Bill..........................14
IV. Cost Estimate...................................................18
V. Regulatory Impact Evaluation....................................19
VI. Conclusion......................................................19
VII. Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported...........20
VIII.Appendix........................................................21
I. Purpose of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act
A. SUMMARY
As recent cases confirm, unsolved murders pose some of the
most important and vexing law enforcement challenges facing our
nation. For far too long, racially motivated violence divided
communities and intimidated American citizens.
These violent and discriminatory crimes tear at the fabric
of our democracy. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal
protection of the laws. The Federal Government, in particular,
has traditionally been the guardian of last resort for our
nation's most vulnerable inhabitants. Yet, African-American
citizens were not protected for much of our history. Countless
African Americans and civil rights workers involved in the
struggle for equality were murdered or randomly killed in
deliberate acts of racial intimidation.
The brutal murder of Emmett Till was one of the most
infamous acts of racial violence in American history, yet his
killers were never punished. Like Emmett Till, hundreds of
other Americans of this era suffered a similar fate. According
to the Southern Poverty Law Center, ``The killers in most of
the cases have not been prosecuted or convicted, and today,
there are many cases that still cry out for justice.''\1\
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\1\The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act: Joint Hearing
on H.R. 923 Before the H. Subcomm. on the Constitution, Civil Rights,
and Civil Liberties and the Subcomm. on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland
Security of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 110th Cong. (2007)
(statement of J. Richard Cohen, President of the S. Poverty Law Ctr.).
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The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act (Till bill)
seeks to address racial injustices before they become permanent
scars on our democracy. Passage of this legislation will
provide for a sustained, well-coordinated, and well-funded
effort to investigate and prosecute racially motivated murders
that occurred on or before December 31, 1969. This bill
designates an official within the U.S. Department of Justice
(DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
respectively, with the responsibility to coordinate the
investigation and prosecution of civil rights violations that
occurred prior to 1970 and that resulted in a death. Congress
recognizes the urgent need for this measure. Given the advanced
age of defendants and potential witnesses, only a small window
of opportunity exists to investigate and prosecute these
crimes. It will soon be too late to right these wrongs and to
ensure equal justice in our criminal justice system.
The bill also includes the Missing Child Cold Case Review
Act, which was sponsored by Chairman Leahy in the 109th
Congress. This measure allows inspectors general of federal law
enforcement agencies to authorize staff to assist the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) by conducting
reviews of inactive case files and developing recommendations
for further investigation. Inspectors general are eager to
provide this assistance, and NCMEC needs this help. We believe
this cooperation will bolster efforts to solve these heart-
wrenching cases.
B. PURPOSE AND NEED FOR BILL
i. Background
In the summer of 1955, a fourteen-year-old African-American
teenager from Chicago named Emmett Till traveled to the
Mississippi Delta to visit relatives. On the evening of
Wednesday, August 24, 1955, Emmett Till walked into Bryant's
Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Mississippi to purchase some
candy, and allegedly flirted with the white female shopkeeper.
Four days later, two white men came to the house of Emmett
Till's relatives in the middle of the night, abducted Emmett
Till, and informed his grandfather: ``if you cause any trouble
you'll never live to be sixty-five.''\2\ His corpse was found
in the Tallahatchie River, with a seventy-pound gin-mill fan
tied to his neck with barbed wire. Emmett's mother, Mamie
Bradley, insisted that his body be shipped back to Chicago,
where it was displayed in an open coffin for four days.
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\2\Steven Kasher, The Civil Rights Movement, A Photographic
History, 1954-68 22 (1996).
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No one was ever punished. J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were
tried for Emmett Till's murder and acquitted by an all-white
jury after only 67 minutes of deliberation.\3\ They later gave
a full confession to writer William Bradford Huie for $4,000.
In a January 1956 Look magazine article, entitled ``The
Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi,'' the two
men confessed to killing Emmett Till, and reported that they
committed the murder because they ``decided it was time a few
people got put on notice.''\4\
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\3\Natasha Korecki, Family Sees Till Case Closed, The Chicago Sun-
Times, March 30, 2007, at 2. Milam and Bryant admitted to kidnapping
and beating Emmett Till but claimed they left him alive. Id. In May
2004, the DOJ announced it was renewing the investigation into the
murder, but the prosecutor failed to obtain an indictment from a grand
jury in 2007. Allen G. Breed, Controversy Visits Till Case--Again, The
Washington Post, March 11, 2007, at A03.
\4\David Rubel, The Coming Free: The Struggle for African American
Equality 69 (2005).
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Emmett Till's death left an indelible mark on America. The
public images of his mutilated body in an open casket, and the
fact that no convictions occurred, stirred our nation's
conscience. The racial violence commonplace in the American
South became known to the world, and generated a widespread
public outcry across America.
Emmett Till's murder also inspired the modern civil rights
movement. Just three months after the Till murder trial, Rosa
Parks was arrested for protesting segregation laws. In the next
twenty years, Americans of all races, genders, and ages would
risk their lives fighting for civil rights.
ii. A legacy of widespread racially motivated violence
Emmett Till's murder did not stand in isolation.
Historically, anti-civil rights violence was widespread
throughout the nation. According to legal historians more than
100 violent incidents in the South connected to civil rights
activity occurred between January 1, 1955 and May 1, 1958.\5\
The majority of this violence occurred in the form of bombing
of homes, schools, and churches. In the city of Birmingham,
Alabama, between 1955 and 1963 local African Americans were
targets of twenty-one bombings, all of which went unsolved.\6\
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\5\Michael J. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: the Supreme
Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality 425 (2004).
\6\Id.
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Racial violence led many civil rights activists to pay the
ultimate price for freedom. For example, on June 12, 1963,
Medgar Evers, the first NAACP Field Secretary for Mississippi,
was killed by a white supremacist's bullet outside his home for
advocating nonviolent means to dismantle racial segregation.\7\
On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers--James Chaney,
Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman--were murdered by
Klansmen while they were returning from investigating a church
bombing in Neshoba County, Mississippi during ``Freedom
Summer.''\8\ In February 1965, Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young
black civil rights activist, was shot and killed by a state
trooper at a voting rights march in Marion, Alabama.\9\ A month
later in that same year, Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a thirty-nine-
year-old white homemaker and activist from Detroit, was shot to
death on the Alabama highway during the Selma-to-Montgomery
march for voting rights.\10\ On January 10, 1966, Vernon
Dahmer, an African American who offered to collect poll taxes
for his neighbors so they would not have to go to the
courthouse in town, died from scorched lungs when Klansmen
firebombed his house.\11\
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\7\S. Poverty Law Ctr., Free At Last: A History of the Civil Rights
Movement & Those Who Died in the Struggle 54-55 (2005).
\8\Id. at 64-65.
\9\Id. at 70-71.
\10\Id. at 74-75.
\11\Id. at 84-85.
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Non-activists were also targets of racial violence aimed at
intimidating citizens from exercising basics rights of
citizenship or resisting the social mores of Jim Crow
segregation. African Americans lost their lives while
exercising basic rights such as riding a bus across state
lines. In April 1962, Army Cpl. Roman Ducksworth, Jr.,
exhausted from a 950-mile bus ride from Fort Ritchie, Maryland
to his hometown of Taylorsville, Mississippi was shot by a
police officer who mistakenly assumed he was a Freedom
Rider.\12\ On June 10, 1966, Ben Chester White, a 67-year-old
caretaker who had never participated in the civil rights
movement, nor even ever cast a vote, was killed by Klansmen
seeking to lure Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Natchez,
Mississippi to assassinate him.\13\ And, as mentioned above,
Emmett Till was killed for violating the Jim Crow customs which
prohibited African Americans from touching or flirting with
white women.
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\12\Id. at 48-49.
\13\Id.
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iii. The continuing problem of unsolved civil rights crimes
The exact number of unsolved racially motivated murder
cases that occurred before the 1970s remains unknown. The
Southern Poverty Law Center has estimated that 114 race-related
killings occurred between 1952 and 1968.\14\ Many of these
killings were never fully investigated, and in some cases, law
enforcement officials were involved in the killings or
subsequent cover-ups. In many cases, such as the murder of
Emmett Till, suspects were brought to trial only to be set free
by sympathetic white juries.
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\14\Hearing, supra note 1 (statement of J. Richard Cohen)
(explaining that the Southern Poverty Law Center's research has
discovered 40 people whose cases fit the criteria they were looking for
and an additional 74 persons who died violently between 1952 and 1968
under circumstances suggesting that they were victims of racial
violence).
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The FBI is currently investigating or considering
investigating 102 killings that occurred before the 1970s.\15\
Of these, 94% (96 incidents) are in the Southeast, 4% (4
incidents) are in the West, and 2% (2 incidents) are in the
Northeast.\16\ Mississippi comprises the most significant
percentage of unsolved civil rights cases at 42% (43
incidents). Of the remaining states with investigations or
assessments for investigations 17% (17 incidents) are in
Alabama, 13% (14 incidents) are in Georgia, 7% (7 incidents)
are in Louisiana, 4% (4 incidents) are in Texas, 12% (3% for
each state, with each state having 3 incidents each) are in
North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee, 2% (2
incidents) are in Arkansas, and 3% (1% for each state, with
each state having 1 incident) are in Ohio, Kentucky and New
York.\17\
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\15\E-mail from Nancy Scott Finan, Legis. Aide, U.S. Dep't of
Justice, Office of Legis. Affairs, to the S. Comm. on the Judiciary
(June 8, 2007) (compiling statistics) (on file with the S. Comm. on the
Judiciary).
\16\Id.
\17\Id.
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In recent years, law enforcement officials at the federal,
state and local level have made sporadic efforts to solve some
of the crimes that were ignored at the time by law enforcement
officials. According to press reports, since 1989, 29 pre-1970s
racially motivated cases have been reopened, leading to 29
arrests and 23 convictions.\18\ In 1994, Byron De La Beckwith
was convicted in Mississippi for the 1963 murder of civil
rights leader Medgar Evers.\19\ In 1998, Sam Bowers was
convicted for the murder of Vernon Dahmer, NAACP president in
Hattiesburg, Mississippi.\20\ In 2001, Thomas Blanton was
convicted for the murder of four black girls in the 1963 church
bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.\21\ The following year, Bobby
Frank Cherry was convicted over the same bombing.\22\ In 2003,
Ernest Avants was sentenced to life in prison by a federal
district court in Mississippi for the 1966 murder of Ben White,
an elderly Black farm worker.\23\ In 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was
convicted of manslaughter in Mississippi State Court and
received three 20 year sentences for his role in 1964 death of
three civil rights workers in Mississippi.\24\ On May 9, 2007,
an Alabama grand jury indicted former state trooper James
Bonard Fowler on a charge of murder in the shooting death of
Jimmie Lee Jackson in 1965.\25\ Most recently, on June, 14,
2007, 71-year-old James Ford Seale was convicted in federal
court in Mississippi for the 1964 abductions and slayings of
Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Dees.\26\
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\18\Jerry Mitchell, Trial Set to Begin in Mississippi Civil Rights-
Era Case, USA Today, May 24, 2007, at 9A. On June 14, 2007, James Ford
Seale was convicted for the murders of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles
Eddie Moore, bringing the number of convictions to 23. Jerry Mitchell,
Guilty on All Counts, The Clarion-Ledger, June 15, 2007, at 1A.
\19\Beckwith's conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of
Mississippi on December 27, 1997. Beckwith v. State, 707 So. 2d 547
(Miss. 1997), reh'g denied, March 26, 1998, cert. denied, Beckwith v.
Mississippi, 525 U.S. 880 (1998). A federal district court denied
Beckwith's petition for writ of habeas corpus in 2000. Beckwith v.
Anderson, 89 F. Supp.2d. 788 (S.D. Miss. 2000).
\20\Margaret Russell, Cleansing Moments and Retrospective Justice,
101 Mich. L. Rev. 1141, 1161 (2003) (``In 1998, again following public
disclosure of Mississippi Sovereignty Commission evidence, prosecutors
re-indicted Bowers. A third Mississippi trial court convicted Bowers
and sentenced him to life imprisonment.'').
\21\Blanton v. State, 886 So. 2d 850 (Ala. Crim. App. 2003), cert.
denied, 886 So. 2d 886 (Ala. 2004), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 878 (2004).
\22\The Alabama Criminal Court of Appeals affirmed Cherry's
conviction in 2004. Cherry v. State, 933 So. 2d 377 (Ala. Crim. App.
2004), cert. denied, Cherry v. State, 933 So. 2d 393 (Ala. 2006).
\23\Avant's 2000 acquittal was reversed and remanded by the Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals on January 7, 2002. United States v. Avants,
278 F.3d 510, 522 (5th Cir. 2002) (holding that federal and state
murder prosecutions, although identical in their respective elements,
were separate offenses for purposes of the Sixth Amendment because they
were violations of the laws of two separate sovereigns). On remand, the
district court found Avants guilty and sentenced him to life in prison
in 2003; the Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment in 2004. United States
v. Avants, 367 F.3d 433, 449 (5th Cir. 2004) (holding that the
conviction was not a manifest miscarriage of justice).
\24\Killen's conviction was affirmed by the Mississippi Supreme
court on April 12, 2007. Killen v. State, No. 2005-KA-01393-SCT., 2007
WL 1080391, at *19 (Miss. Apr. 12, 2007) (holding that 41-year delay
bringing indictment for murder did not violate defendant's due process
rights).
\25\Jenny Jarvie, Ex Cop Indicted in Civil Rights Era Case, The
Chicago Tribune, May 10, 2007 at 3.
\26\Mitchell, Guilty on All Counts, supra note 18.
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Despite these recent prosecutions and convictions, much
work remains to be done. The Southern Poverty Law Center has
provided this Committee with a list of 74 ``forgotten persons''
who were victims of racially motivated violence prior to the
1970s, and 23 of the deaths commemorated on the Civil Rights
Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama have not been brought to
justice.\27\ We attached the list of 74 ``forgotten persons''
as an appendix to this report.
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\27\Hearing, supra note 1 (statement of J. Richard Cohen) (``In 13
of the 40 deaths noted on the Civil Rights Memorial, no one has ever
been brought to trial. In 10 of the 40 deaths, defendants were either
acquitted by all-white juries or served only token prison
sentences.'').
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iv. Purpose and imperative for the bill
The purpose of the Till bill is to provide the families of
victims murdered prior to the 1970s for racially motivated
reasons with long awaited justice.
The perpetrators of these crimes have remained at liberty
into old age, ``sometimes gloating publicly about the
murders.''\28\ Meanwhile, hundreds of families that reported
their child missing more than a year ago are still waiting for
their cases to be solved.\29\ Although some civil rights-era
murderers have been prosecuted and convicted since 1989,\30\ no
prior legislation has provided the federal and state
governments with the necessary resources to find most of the
perpetrators of these crimes and bring them to justice.\31\
Doing so becomes increasingly difficult with the passage of
time as sources of new evidence dry up, witnesses age, and
memories fade. The window of time to render justice in these
cases is quickly closing. It is imperative to bring murderers
to justice, even if several years or decades have passed since
these heinous crimes were committed. Doing so brings truth,
closure, healing, and reconciliation to the affected families,
friends, communities, and our nation as a whole.\32\ Although
it is painful for families to revisit the nightmares of the
past, many families of victims have been instrumental in
generating momentum to re-open investigations.
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\28\Russell, supra note 20, at 1226.
\29\Letter from Ernie Allen, President and CEO of NCMEC, to Senator
Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary (June 5, 2007)
(stating that NCMEC had only 3 full-time employees currently working
846 long-term cases) (letter on file with the S. Comm. on the
Judiciary).
\30\See Mitchell, supra note 18, at 9A.
\31\See id.; see also Allen, supra note 29 (suggesting that three
full-time staff is inadequate to successfully investigate 846 cases).
\32\Hearing, supra note 1 (statement of Myrlie B. Evers) (urging
Congress not ``[to] forget that family members of the persons murdered
are also victims. They are human beings who must survive the loss of
their loved ones--and all that that [entails] * * * the emotional Hell
that never completely disappears; the nightmare of the bloody crime
scene; the sounds of terror; the firebombs; the sound of gunfire;
missing that person's love, care and guidance; the loss of financial
support and so much more.'').
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Investigating and prosecuting old civil rights cases also
serves a broader societal purpose. Many of these horrendous
crimes were not just the results of criminal acts of private
individuals but were a consequence of government actors who
were complicit in the misconduct.\33\ The states and federal
government also bear responsibility for the racial climate that
allowed individual racially motivated hate crimes to flourish.
Investigating and prosecuting these cases vindicates the state
interest in the equal protection of criminal and civil rights
law and restores the legitimacy of the criminal justice system
upon which our democracy depends.
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\33\ See e.g., Beckwith v. Anderson, 89 F. Supp. 2d 788, 798
(citing Beckwith v. State, 707 So. 2d at 567) (acknowledging that the
state-sponsored State Sovereignty Commission--a state organized spy
agency designed to thwart integration--had a hand in delaying
Beckwith's trial for the murder of Medgar Evans by tampering with the
jury selection and aiding his defense during his two trials in 1964);
see also Russell, supra note 20, at 1239 (documenting state
involvement).
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Although the FBI has recently played an important role in
investigating and successfully prosecuting civil rights-era
murders, in the past it withheld files from the press and state
authorities.\34\ FBI Director Robert Mueller has acknowledged
that, ``[m]any murders during the civil rights era were not
fully investigated, were covered up or were misidentified as
accidental death or disappearance.''\35\ For example, the FBI
had investigated the church bombing at the Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church extensively at the time it occurred in 1963 and
had focused its attention on four local Klansmen with long
histories of violence. Despite possessing secret tape
recordings that implicated the suspects, FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover closed the case in 1968 without bringing charges.\36\
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\34\In an opinion piece, John Fleming argues that the release of
FBI files to state and local authorities as well as the press is
crucial to resolving racially motivated crimes. See John Fleming, 42
Years Later, The Release of Civil Rights-Era FBI Files Might Hold Key
to Unsolved Cases, June 2, 2007, available at http://
www.annistonstar.com/opinion/2007/as-insight-0603-jflemingcol-
7f02s0207.htm. He states that in 2004 the FBI denied his FOIA request
for a file on James Fowler regarding the 1965 murder of Jimmie Lee
Jackson on the grounds that the file did not exist, when there in fact
was a file which had been released to a film-maker in 1979. Id. The
filmmaker made the file available to the journalist, who subsequently
made it available to the prosecution and the defense after Fowler was
indicted for the murder in May, 2007. Id.
\35\Robert S. Mueller III, Director of the FBI, Remarks at the News
Conference on the Civil Rights Cold Case Initiative, U.S. Department of
Justice, Washington, DC, (Feb. 27, 2007) available at http://
www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/mueller022707.htm.
\36\Hearing, supra note 1 (statement of J. Richard Cohen); see also
id. (statement of G. Douglas Jones).
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The case remained closed until U.S. Attorney Doug Jones
reopened it in the mid-1990s. Mr. Jones discovered that there
was significant evidence that the FBI had not shared with Mr.
Baxley during the Chambliss prosecution, including recordings
made by a listening device placed near Blanton's kitchen sink
as well as tapes secretly recorded by Klan informant Mitchell
Burns during drinking binges with Cherry and Blanton.\37\ Armed
with this evidence, Mr. Jones secured convictions for Blanton
in 2001 and Cherry in 2002.
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\37\ Id. (statement of J. Douglas Jones).
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The Committee also intends for this bill to demonstrate our
national commitment to restorative justice. During the era of
massive resistance, racial extremists used racial violence to
deny African Americans the basic rights of citizenship,
including the right to vote, to obtain an education, to obtain
a job, and to enjoy access to public accommodations. Rita
Bender, the widow of Michael Schwerner, acutely explained in
her statement before Congress the effect that a culture of
impunity had on society:
For decades * * * Americans lived out their lives in
the towns and cities where the crimes occurred, often
engaging in the small exchanges of life with the
perpetrators. For some, that continual interaction with
persons who they knew had committed heinous acts must
have been a constant source of intimidation, even if
nothing was said directly. For others, knowledge of the
crime and the failure of communal action to impose
consequences on the actors was the denial of the
seriousness of the event, a diminishment of civil
society.\38\
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\38\Hearing, supra note 1 (statement of Rita Bender).
In other words, these crimes were committed not just
against the victims, but against our society. This bill will
serve as a tool for communities to confront past wrongs,
determine guilt, seek to acknowledge responsibility, and impose
a penalty commensurate with the wrongdoing. With such acts
comes the possibility of healing and restorative justice.\39\
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\39\See id.
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In furtherance of the legislation's goal of bringing the
perpetrators of racially motivated murders to justice, the
Committee finds that the DOJ and state and local law
enforcement should consider--but not be limited to--victims who
fit at least one of four criteria: (1) persons murdered because
they were active in the civil rights movement; (2) persons
killed by organized hate groups as acts of terror aimed at
intimidating blacks and civil rights activists; (3) persons
whose deaths, like the death of Emmett Till, helped to
galvanize the movement by demonstrating the brutality faced by
African Americans in the South;\40\ or, as a catchall, (4)
persons who died violently before 1970 under circumstances
suggesting that they were victims of racial violence.\41\
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\40\The Southern Poverty Law Center used these criteria in
researching unsolved civil rights murders and submitted these criteria
to Congress. See Hearing, supra note 1 (statement of J. Richard Cohen).
These criteria were considered when determining the Till bill's
standard: a violation of a civil rights statute that occurred prior to
January 1, 1970 and resulted in death.
\41\The Southern Poverty Law Center used this criterion in
compiling its list of ``The Forgotten'' which has been attached as an
appendix at the end of this report. Appendix; see also Hearing, supra
note 1 (statement of J. Richard Cohen).
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v. Constitutional, jurisdictional, and evidentiary limitations
Due to the vast lapse of time in many of these cases
certain prosecutions may raise constitutional, jurisdictional,
and evidentiary concerns. The DOJ raised concerns that the Ex
Post Facto Clause and statute of limitation concerns limit the
available tools the government can use to prosecute historic
cold cases.\42\ Some legal scholars have also noted that
criminal defendants are likely to raise potential defenses to
prosecution, including the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy
Clause, the Sixth Amendment's Speedy Trial Clause, and the
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments' Due Process Clauses.\43\
However, on appeal in several recent cases, some of those
concerns have been addressed by the state supreme courts or the
Circuit Courts of Appeals. The drafters of the bill have
therefore taken every precaution to ensure that the bill is
consistent with the Constitution, and to provide methods of
achieving effective enforcement without infringing on the
aforementioned concerns.
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\42\Letter from William E. Moschella, Assistant Attorney General,
to then-Senator James Talent (June 27, 2006) (noting that ``the
Constitution bars [the bill] from retroactively conferring Federal
jurisdiction to prosecute such civil rights crimes,'' that 18 U.S.C.
Sec. 245 and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 3631 were not enacted until 1968, and that
all Federal criminal civil rights statutes carried a five year statute
of limitations) (on file with the S. Comm. on the Judiciary).
\43\See, e.g., Russell, supra note 20, at 1255-62.
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Retroactive application of the current criminal civil
rights statutes to prosecute historical cases covered by this
legislation may invoke the Ex Post Facto Clause. S. 535 charges
the Department to investigate ``violations of criminal civil
rights statutes * * * result[ing] in death'' that ``occurred no
later than December 31, 1969.'' The two principal federal hate
crime statutes for prosecuting racially motivated homicides, 18
U.S.C. Sec. 245 (interference with federally protected
activities) and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1A3631 (interference with
housing rights), were not enacted until 1968. Therefore, the Ex
Post Facto Clause bars use of Sec. 1A245 and 3631 for crimes
that occurred prior to 1968.\44\
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\44\But see Avants, 278 F.3d at 514 (finding federal jurisdiction
under 18 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1111 and 1112 and holding that federal and
state murder prosecutions, although identical in their respective
elements, were separate offenses for purposes of the Sixth Amendment
because they were violations of the laws of two separate sovereigns).
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The statutes of limitation bar federal prosecution of many
of these offenses. Prior to 1994, federal criminal civil rights
violations were not capital offenses, thereby subjecting them
to a five-year statute of limitations. In 1994, some of these
civil rights statutes were amended to provide the death penalty
for violations resulting in death, thereby eliminating the
statute of limitations. However, the Ex Post Facto Clause
prevents the retroactive application of the 1994 increase in
penalties, and the resultant change in the statute of
limitations.
As a result, this Committee finds that state and local law
enforcement agencies will continue to play a primary role in
the investigation and prosecution of all types of hate crimes.
We expect the federal government to partner with state and
local law enforcement, with state and local prosecutors taking
the lead in most cases. Concurrent federal jurisdiction is
necessary only to permit joint state-federal investigations and
to authorize federal prosecution in those instances in which
state and local officials are either unable or unwilling to
pursue cases that adequately address the federal interest in
fighting bias crime.
This Committee nevertheless expects the federal government
to still play a vital role in these prosecutions. First, in
terms of investigations, in 2006 the FBI began a comprehensive
effort to identify and investigate racially-motivated murders
committed during the 1950s and 1960s. The FBI has already
started to accumulate information from outside organizations
and to follow those leads. We expect this initiative to
continue and to expand.
Second, in terms of prosecution, not all of the federal
statutes at the Department's disposal have statute of
limitations or ex post facto concerns. For example, the
Department has brought a prosecution involving first degree
murder committed in the special maritime and territorial
jurisdiction of the United States, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1111, as well
as a prosecution involving kidnapping resulting in death, 18
U.S.C. Sec. 1201. Neither of these non-civil rights statutes
have statutes of limitations that could bar successful
prosecutions.
Third, in terms of resources, the federal government has
the resources and expertise to provide valuable assistance to
state and local entities pursuing state prosecutions. In the
Emmett Till case, although no federal jurisdiction was present,
the Department conducted an investigation into a local matter
because Till had traveled from out-of-state into the state in
which he was murdered. The FBI reported the results of its
extensive investigation to the District Attorney for
Greenville, Mississippi. We expect such cooperation and
assistance to continue and to expand into other scenarios.
While maintaining the primary role of state and local
governments in the investigation and prosecution of violent
hate crimes, the bill would authorize the federal government to
work in partnership with state and local law enforcement
officials and to serve an important backstop function with
regard to a wider range of hate-motivated violence than federal
law currently permits. The Till bill would provide the
resources to federal and state governments, but it does not
dictate which so called ``cold cases'' should be re-opened.
Fourth, defendants' constitutional challenges to their
convictions on appeal have been dismissed by both state and
federal courts.\45\ For example, Beckwith challenged his
conviction on the Double Jeopardy Clause, the Speedy Trial
Clause and the Due Process Clause in the Supreme Court of
Mississippi.\46\ The court held that the 26-year delay between
the second mistrial and return of the second indictment did not
violate defendant's right to a speedy trial\47\ and that an
entry of nolle prosequi does not bar another prosecution for
the same offense.\48\ According to Supreme Court precedent set
in United States v. Scott\49\ and United States v. Wilson,\50\
the Double Jeopardy clause only bars criminal prosecution for
the same offense for which the defendant has already been
acquitted, convicted, or pardoned.\51\ The mere passage of time
does not render a prosecution unprosecutable under the Due
Process Clause.\52\ Therefore, prosecutions which resulted in
mistrials and hung juries, such as Beckwith's, can be
reprosecuted in compliance with the Constitution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\45\See generally, Russell, supra note 20, at 1256-61.
\46\Beckwith, 707 So. 2d at 565-71.
\47\Id. at 565, 568-89 (holding that defendant did not show
``intentional delay for tactical purposes'' and citing Stoner v.
Graddick, 751 F.2d 1535 (11th Cir. 1985)).
\48\Id. at 566.
\49\437 U.S. 82, 87 (1978).
\50\420 U.S. 332, 340 (1975).
\51\Russell, supra note 20, at 1256 (citing cases).
\52\Id. at 1260-61.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition, the dual sovereignty doctrine has allowed for
the re-prosecution of a defendant whose alleged act violates
both federal and state law, even if the state acquitted the
defendant for the same crime.\53\ For example, the district
court found jurisdiction over Avant's murder of Ben White under
Federal statute because the murder had taken place on a
national forest, even though the state court acquitted him. The
Fifth Circuit affirmed the conviction.\54\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\Id. at 1257. Russell warns that this interpretation is
controversial. Id. at 1259. Therefore, she suggests that the most
viable approach would be to focus reprosecutions following mistrials
and hung juries (such as the Beckwith case), and initial prosecutions
of individuals (such as the Blanton and Cherry trials). Id.
\54\See supra note 23 and accompanying explanation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
vi. The continuing problem of unsolved missing children cases
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
(NCMEC) serves as a clearinghouse of information about missing
and exploited children. As a national resource center for child
protection, NCMEC spearheads national efforts to locate and
recover missing children.
Established in 1984, NCMEC is a private, nonprofit
organization that operates under a congressional mandate and
works in cooperation with DOJ's Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention to coordinate ``the efforts of law
enforcement, social service agencies, elected officials,
judges, prosecutors, educators, and the public and private
sectors to break the cycle of violence that historically has
perpetuated [] needless crimes committed against
children.''\55\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\See National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, General
Information and Publications, available at http://www.missingkids.com/
en_US/publications/NC21.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among its many vital functions, it operates a cold case
unit to resolve missing-child cases. This unit assists law
enforcement, medical examiners, and coroners with cases
involving long-term missing and unidentified children. The unit
develops strategies for investigative agencies, works with
medical examiners to provide identification assistance, and
establishes review processes for long-term cases.\56\ Since the
unit was established in 2001, 307 cold cases have been
successfully resolved.\57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\56\National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Annual
Report 2006, at 12, available at http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/
publications/NC92part1.pdf.
\57\Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite these accomplishments, the numbers of missing and
exploited children remain unacceptably high. A 2006 study
released by DOJ found that, in a one year period, 797,500
children were reported missing.\58\ That is an average of 2,100
children reported missing each day. The study also found that,
in a one year period, 1,682,900 children ran away or were
abandoned, 203,900 children were abducted by family members,
198,000 children were involuntarily missing, lost or injured,
and 58,200 children were abducted by non-family members.\59\
NCMEC has been instrumental in improving the recovery rate of
missing children from 62 percent in 1990 to 96 percent today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\58\Department of Justice, Offenders and Victims: 2006 National
Report, at 26, available at http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/nr2006/
downloads/chapter3.pdf.
\59\Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite these successes, young victims continue to fall
through the cracks. Nationally, 4 percent of missing children
cases remain unsolved each year. The haphazard response to
child abduction, especially prior to the Amber alert, means
that no one knows exactly how many unsolved missing children
cases exist. For example, in 2001 The Hartford Courant reviewed
59 unsolved child-abduction cases in New England over the last
30 years, and found that authorities sometimes fail to
immediately investigate such cases, fail to share critical
information and overlook systems put in place to help solve
these crimes.\60\ The newspaper found that older cases, in
particular, tend to fade into oblivion unless an investigator
takes a personal stake in one.\61\ Thus, the numbers of missing
children cold cases are likely higher than current estimates.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\Dave Altimari, Why Are They Still Missing?; Indifference,
Delays and Haphazard Reporting; 59 Stolen Hearts, Hartford Courant,
April 15, 2001, at A1.
\61\Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NCMEC's own records are often incomplete. For example,
police departments are encouraged to notify NCMEC of old cases,
as well as new ones. Nevertheless, federal law does not require
state or local police officials to report to NCMEC or avail
themselves of its resources. As a result, NCMEC's records may
likely underreport the numbers of missing child cold cases that
exist nationwide.
Even when cold cases are identified by NCMEC, solving these
cases requires overcoming the burden of insufficient resources.
According to a recent letter from NCMEC, its cold case unit has
handled more than 1,800 long-term missing and unidentified
children cases over the past six years.\62\ Of those, nearly
1,000 have been resolved in some manner, through recovery,
identification, or administrative means. The remaining 846
cases are continually reviewed on a semi-annual basis by three
full-time employees.\63\ Support from the inspectors general,
who are eager to provide assistance, would augment the
important efforts already underway at NCMEC. We would do well
to facilitate cooperation between our Nation's top resource for
child protection and the diverse and talented investigators in
the offices of our inspectors general. This cooperation will
bolster efforts to solve these heart-wrenching cases.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\62\See Allen, supra note 29.
\63\Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Section 8 of the Till bill would authorize the staff of an
inspector general to assist NCMEC by conducting reviews of
inactive case files to develop recommendations for further
investigations. This provision has been added to the Till bill
because, similar to families of victims from decades old
racially motivated murders, families of missing children
deserve closure after many years of waiting for these cases to
be resolved.
II. History of the Bill and Committee Consideration
A. HEARING
i. June 12, 2007
On June 12, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee's
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil
Liberties and Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland
Security held a joint legislative hearing on ``H.R. 923--the
Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.'' This hearing
examined the urgency and need for the federal government to
provide additional financial assistance and resources to assist
in solving these crimes.
The following witnesses testified at this hearing: Grace
Chung Becker, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights
Division, United States Department of Justice; Myrlie Evers
Williams, widow of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers (d.
1963), Founder of the Medgar Evers Institute, and Chairman
Emeritus of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People; Douglas Jones, Esq., former United States
Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama; Richard Cohen,
Esq., President and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center;
Rita L. Bender, Esq., widow of slain civil rights worker
Michael Schwerner (d. 1964).
B. LEGISLATION
i. Legislative history of Till bill
Senator Chris Dodd and Chairman Patrick Leahy introduced
the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, S. 535, on
February 8, 2007. This bipartisan bill is cosponsored by, in
alphabetical order, Senators Alexander, Biden, Cardin, Cornyn,
Durbin, Hatch, Kennedy, Landrieu, McCaskill, Schumer, Specter,
and Whitehouse.
This legislation is similar to the Unsolved Civil Rights
Crime Act, S. 2679, which then-Senator Jim Talent and Senator
Dodd introduced on April 27, 2006. The Judiciary Committee
favorably reported that legislation on August 3, 2006, by voice
vote, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute, which
included the Missing Child Cold Case Review Act. At the close
of the 109th Congress, the bill's sponsors sought to pass the
bill by a unanimous consent agreement. They were unable to
secure the agreement and the bill did not pass.
On June 7, 2007, S. 535 was placed on the Judiciary
Committee's agenda. The Committee considered this legislation
on June 14, 2007.
During the Committee's consideration of S. 535, one
amendment to the bill was offered by Chairman Leahy and it was
adopted by the Committee by unanimous consent. The Leahy
amendment revised the structural changes at the DOJ and the FBI
originally envisioned by the bill by assigning a Deputy Chief
in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ
and a Special Investigatory Agent in the Civil Rights Unit of
the FBI to coordinate, investigate, and prosecute racially
motivated cold cases on or before December 31, 1969. It
maintained strong reporting requirements while avoiding hurdles
that could have a detrimental impact on pending investigations
such as requiring the DOJ to report the case names of open
investigations. It allowed the DOJ to issue grants to state and
local law enforcement agencies for investigation and
prosecution of violations of state and local laws similar to
federal criminal civil rights statutes. Finally, it made
technical changes to the remainder of the bill to ensure
consistency.
The Leahy amendment in the form of a complete substitute
mirrors the companion bill that was referred to the full House
Judiciary Committee, H.R. 923.
The Committee favorably reported S. 535, as amended by the
Leahy amendment in the form of a complete substitute, by
unanimous consent.
ii. Legislative history of the Missing Child Cold Case Review Act
Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the original Missing Child
Cold Case Review Act (S. 2435) on May 18, 2004, with Senator
Grassley. Senators Lincoln and Hatch were also cosponsors. It
was discharged from the Judiciary Committee and passed the
Senate by Unanimous Consent on October 1, 2004. The bill was
then referred to the House Committee on Government Reform,
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency and Financial Management.
The bill languished in the House Subcommittee through the end
of the 108th Congress.
Senator Leahy and Senator Hatch also included the Missing
Child Cold Case Review Act in the Department of Justice
Appropriations Authorization Act, fiscal years 2005 through
2007 (S. 2863, 108th Congress), which was introduced on
September 24, 2004. That bill was referred to the Senate
Judiciary Committee where it never saw further action.
In the 109th Congress, at a Judiciary Committee Executive
Business Meeting on August 3, 2006, Senator Leahy offered, and
the Judiciary Committee adopted by voice vote a substitute
amendment to the Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act (S. 2679),
which included the Missing Child Cold Case Review Act. The
Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act (S. 2679), as amended, was
reported out of the Judiciary Committee by voice vote. At the
close of the 109th Congress, the bill's sponsors sought a
unanimous consent agreement to pass the bill, but were unable
to secure the agreement and the bill did not pass.
On August 3, 2006, the Missing Child Cold Case Review Act
was included in the Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act as a Leahy-
Cornyn as an amendment in the form of a complete substitute.
C. LETTERS OF SUPPORT
The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act is intended
to investigate and prosecute violations of civil rights
statutes that occurred prior to 1970 and resulted in death.
Although these delayed prosecutions cannot right the wrongs of
the past, they are a step towards providing equality in the
American criminal justice system. Recognizing that there is a
small window of time to investigate and prosecute these crimes,
the Act increases the financial and human resources available
for the aggressive investigation and prosecution of these
crimes. This legislation is supported by a wide range of
governmental and non-governmental agencies including The U.S.
Department of Justice,\64\ The National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children,\65\ The Fraternal Order of Police,\66\ The
Southern Poverty Law Center,\67\ and The National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People,\68\ The American Civil
Liberties Union,\69\ The Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights,\70\ and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.\71\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\Moschella, supra note 42, (stating that DOJ ``strongly supports
the important legislative goals of the bill'').
\65\Allen, supra note 29 (stating that ``Section 8 of this Act will
allow the Inspectors General to provide much-needed assistance to NCMEC
in reviewing cases of long-term missing children.'').
\66\Letter from Chuck Caterbury, National President of the
Fraternal Order of Police, to Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the S.
Comm. on the Judiciary (June 6, 2007) (supporting section 8 of the bill
in particular and referring to the strong support for the bill in the
Inspector General community) (letter on file with the S. Comm. on the
Judiciary).
\67\Letter from Richard Cohen, CEO of The Southern Poverty Law
Center, to Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the S. Comm. on the
Judiciary (June 1, 2007) (claiming that ``investigating and prosecuting
the unsolved slayings [that were racially motivated and occurred pre-
1970s] * * * is a crucial step toward healing the wounds of racial
division that still afflict our nation.'') (letter on file with the S.
Comm. on the Judiciary).
\68\Letter from Hilary Shelton, Director of the NAACP, to Senator
Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary (June 4, 2007)
(urging senators to support the bill because ``it is imperative to
bring murderers of early civil rights activists to justice, to show the
victims' families, as well as the Nation, that their sacrifices
continue to outrage our Nation.'').
\69\Letter from Caroline Frederickson, Director of the ACLU, to
Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary (June
12, 2007) (applauding the legislation's goals and urging members to
support it).
\70\Letter from Wade Henderson, President and CEO of the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights, to Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the
S. Comm. on the Judiciary (June 4, 2007) (claiming ``it is imperative
to put resources behind investigating and prosecuting those individuals
* * * who committed heinous crimes against civil rights activists and
individual African Americans.'').
\71\Letter from John G. Brittain, Chief Counsel of the Lawyers
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, to Speaker of the House Nancy
Pelosi (June 19, 2007) (supporting the bill and urging the Speaker to
schedule a floor vote on H.R. 923--the companion to S. 535--during the
week of June 18, 2007, to mark the 43rd anniversary of the deaths of
Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney (June 21, 1964)).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
III. Section-by-Section Summary of the Till Bill
Section 1--Short title
The Act may be cited as the ``Emmett Till Unsolved Civil
Rights Crime Act.''
Section 2--Sense of the Congress
Section 2 expresses the sense of the Senate that, as each
year passes, the window of opportunity to solve these crimes
becomes smaller because potential witnesses are getting older.
In order to capitalize on the presence of both witnesses and
evidence, it is important to aggressively investigate the pre-
1970 civil rights crimes that resulted in a death in order to
efficiently solve the cases.
Section 2(2) expresses the sense of Congress that time,
resources, and personnel should be devoted to investigating
pre-1970 Civil Rights murders.
Section 3--Deputy Chief in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights
Division
Section 3(a) requires the Attorney General to designate a
Deputy Chief in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights
Division of the DOJ.
Section 3(b)(1) defines the post of Deputy Chief in the
DOJ. The Deputy Chief is responsible for investigating,
prosecuting, and coordinating both investigative and
prosecutorial actions in cases where there is an alleged
violation of a criminal civil rights statute no later than
December 31, 1969 that resulted in a death.
Section 3(b)(2) allows the Deputy Chief to coordinate
investigative activities with state and local officials. While
this coordination is not required, the fact that most of these
cases will lack federal jurisdiction underscores the importance
of state and local participation in the investigations in order
to bring about efficient and accurate results.
Section 3(c) describes the study and report to be conducted
by the Attorney General.
Section 3(c)(1)(A) mandates that the Attorney General must
annually report the number of open and ongoing investigations
conducted by the DOJ.
Section 3(c)(1)(B) requires that the Attorney General
annually report the number of cases and investigations that
were opened pursuant to the enactment of S. 535 and after the
previous report.
Section 3(c)(1)(C) mandates that the Attorney General
annually report the number of unsealed Federal cases, as well
as the case names and jurisdictions that the cases occurred in.
Section 3(c)(1)(D)(i) mandates that the Attorney General
annually report the number of cases that the DOJ referred to a
state or local law enforcement agency, as well as the number of
these cases that resulted in the filing of state or local
charges. The Attorney General must also provide the
jurisdiction in which the charges were filed and the dates the
charges were filed.
Section 3(c)(1)(D)(ii) mandates that the Attorney General
annually report the case names of any unsealed Federal cases in
which the state or local government did not file charges or
prosecute. As such, the Attorney General must also report the
decisions by federal officials not to coordinate investigations
with the state or local officials.
Section 3(c)(1)(E) mandates that the Attorney General
annually report the cases that were closed without federal
prosecution. If the cases are unsealed, then the Attorney
General must provide the names of the un-prosecuted cases, the
dates these cases were closed, and any relevant federal
statutes that led to the closure of these cases.
Section 3(c)(1)(F) mandates that the Attorney General
annually report the number of attorneys who worked on any of
these cases.
Section 3(c)(1)(G) mandates that the Attorney General
annually report the number of applications for grants that are
made by state and local law enforcement officials (as provided
for in Section 5). This report must include the reasons why the
grant amounts were given.
Section 3(c)(2) mandates that the Attorney General prepare
and submit a report of these results to Congress six months
after the enactment of this legislation, and each year after
that, until 2017.
Section 4--Supervisory Special Agent in the Civil Rights Unit of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Section 4(a) requires that the Attorney General designate a
Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) in the Civil Rights Unit of the
FBI. The SSA is tasked with investigating violations described
in 3(b)(1).
Section 4(b)(2)(A) states that the SSA may coordinate
investigative activities with State and local law enforcement
officials. As such, this section recognizes the essential
nature of State and local law enforcement officials in the
successful investigation of the pre-1970 civil rights crimes.
However, it does not require coordination, giving discretion
not to coordinate in a case where state and local law
enforcement is hostile to the investigation of civil rights
cold cases.
Section 5--Grants to State and local law enforcement
Section 5(a) authorizes the Attorney General to award
grants to State and local law enforcement agencies for expenses
incurred in investigating and prosecuting violations of State
or local laws similar to the Federal criminal civil rights
statutes detailed in Section 7.
Section 5(b) authorizes $2 million to be appropriated for
each of fiscal years 2008 through 2017 to carry out Section
5(a).
Section 6-Authorization of appropriations
Section 6(a) authorizes the appropriation of $10,000,000
annually for FY 2008 through FY 2017 to be shared by the Deputy
Chief created by Section 3 and the Supervisory Special Agent
created by Section 4 to advance the goals of this Act. This
section also specifies that the amounts appropriated for this
purpose of carrying out Sections 3 and 4 are in addition to any
other amounts appropriated for the investigation of racially
motivated murders.
Section 6(b) provides for $1,500,000 to be appropriated to
the Community Relations Service of the DOJ each year. This
money is to aid in the investigations of pre-1970 civil rights
crimes that resulted in a death. This money is used to enable
the Service, which was created under 42 U.S.C. 2000g to provide
for appointment and authorization of personnel by a Director to
carry out the duties of a particular office or unit. This money
will therefore be used to enable 4(b), which provides for the
prosecution of pre-1970s civil rights crimes, for the
coordination of racially motivated unsolved civil rights
murders with the State or local officials, and for the referral
of crimes that do not meet the criteria of 3(b)(1) to other
divisions.
Section 7--Definitions
Section 7 defines ``civil rights statutes.'' The unit must
determine if the following statutes were violated: 18 U.S.C.
241, 242, 245, 1581 and 1584, and 901 of the Fair Housing Act
(42 U.S.C. 3631). If one of these criminal civil rights
statutes was not violated, then the crime is not investigated
or prosecuted under this Act.
18 U.S.C. 241 provides for punishment of individuals for
conspiring to deprive another individual of his or her free
exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege. Conspiring is
deemed to be when two or more individuals work together to
injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any
state. 18 U.S.C. 241. Additionally, other crimes committed
during a conspiracy against rights shall be further punished.
18 U.S.C. 242 provides for punishment of individuals who
act under color of law of any law, statute, ordinance,
regulation, or custom in order to deprive another of any
rights, privileges, or immunities that are secured by the
Constitution or by other laws. This means that if an individual
is working in his or her state-granted capacity while
committing a crime then that crime is punishable by law. This
would apply to persons such as police officers, government
officials, etc.
18 U.S.C. 245 provides for punishment of individuals who
interfere with another's right to engage in a federally
protected activity, such as voting or enrolling in a public
college or school 18 U.S.C. 1581 and 1584 provide for
punishment of people who hold or try to hold an individual with
the intent of placing him or returning him to peonage or
servitude.
Sec. 901 of the Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. 3631) makes it
illegal for a person to discriminate against and interfere with
an individual based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap,
familial status, or national origin, when the individual is
attempting to purchase, rent, or sell housing.
Section 3(2)(F)(i) ensures that laws that were in effect
prior to 1970, but may not be in effect now, can still be
enforced by the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
Section 3(2)(F)(ii) ensures that the federal laws the
Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ
regularly enforced prior to the enactment of the Act will be
enforced for the purposes of this Act. If the DOJ does not
regularly enforce certain federal laws after the enactment of
the Act, but did before, then those laws must continue to be
enforced for the purposes of this Act.
Section 8--Sunset
Section 8 limits the execution of this Act until the year
2017.
Section 9--Authority of Inspectors General
Section 9 amends the Crime Control Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C.
5779 et seq.). 42 U.S.C. 5779 requires that Federal, State, and
local law enforcement officials report cases of missing
children under the age of 21 to the National Crime Information
Center of the DOJ.
Section 9(a) amends the Crime Control Act of 1990 to
specify that an Inspector General may authorize staff to assist
the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by
conducting reviews of inactive case files and developing
recommendations for further investigations. This will bolster
the expertise available to review missing children cold cases.
Section 9(b)(1) provides that an Inspector General may not
allow staff to engage in the activities described in subsection
(a) if they will interfere with the other duties incumbent upon
an Inspector General.
Section 9(b)(2) provides that no additional money is
appropriated to carry out these tasks.
Together, the provisions of section 9 ensure that no
preexisting function or duty of an Inspector General's office
will be compromised by any provisions in this legislation.
IV. Cost Estimate
June 19, 2007.
Hon. Patrick J. Leahy,
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has
prepared the enclosed cost estimate for S. 535, the Emmett Till
Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be
pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Daniel
Hoople.
Sincerely,
Peter R. Orszag.
Enclosure.
S. 533--Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act
Summary: S. 535 would authorize the appropriation of $10
million a year over the 2008-2017 period for the Department of
Justice (DOJ) to investigate and prosecute certain unsolved
homicides committed prior to 1970. The bill would also
authorize the appropriation of $3.5 million annually over the
2008-2017 period to provide technical assistance to state and
local law enforcement agencies, as well as make grants to those
agencies for expenses related to the investigation and
prosecution of such crimes. CBO estimates that implementing S.
535 would cost $10 million in 2008 and $63 million over the
2008-2012 period, subject to appropriation of the authorized
amounts. Enacting this legislation would not affect direct
spending or revenues.
S. 535 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector
mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA)
and would impose no cost on state, local, or tribal
governments.
Estimated cost to the Federal Government: The estimated
budgetary impact of S. 535 is shown in the following table. The
cost of this legislation falls within budget function 750
(administration of justice).
Basis of estimate: For this estimate, CBO assumes that S.
535 would be enacted near the end of fiscal year 2007 and that
the authorized amounts will be appropriated for each year. We
estimate that implementing S. 535 would cost a total of $10
million in 2008 and $63 million over the 2008-2012 period.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By fiscal year, in millions of dollars--
--------------------------------------------
2008-- 2009 2010 2011 2012
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHANGES IN SPENDING SUBJECT TO APPROPRIATION
Investigation and Prosecution of Unsolved Crimes:
Authorization Level............................................ 10 10 10 10 10
Estimated Outlays.............................................. 9 10 10 10 10
Grants to State and Local Law Enforcement:
Authorization Level............................................ 2 2 2 2 2
Estimated Outlays.............................................. 0 1 1 2 2
Community Relations Service:
Authorization Level............................................ 2 2 2 2 2
Estimated Outlays.............................................. 1 1 2 2 2
Total Changes:
Authorization Level........................................ 14 14 14 14 14
Estimated Outlays.......................................... 10 12 13 14 14
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Investigation and prosecution of unsolved crimes
S. 535 would authorize the appropriation of $10 million a
year over the 2008-2017 period for the investigation and
prosecution of civil rights violations involving homicides
committed before 1970. The legislation would direct the
Attorney General to designate a Deputy Chief in the Civil
Rights Division of DOJ to coordinate with a newly created
Supervisory Special Agent in the Civil Rights Unit of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation to carry out those
responsibilities. Based on the spending patterns for similar
DOJ activities, CBO estimates that implementing this provision
would cost $9 million in 2008 and $49 million over the 2008-
2012 period.
Grants to state and local law enforcement
S. 535 would authorize the appropriation of $2 million
annually over the 2008-2017 period for DOJ to make grants to
state and local law enforcement agencies to investigate and
prosecute certain civil rights cases. CBO estimates that
implementing this provision would cost $6 million over the
2008-2012 period.
Community relations service
S. 535 would authorize the appropriation of $1.5 million a
year over the 2008-2017 period for the Community Relations
Service of DOJ to aid in investigating and prosecuting those
unsolved civil rights cases. Costs would include technical
assistance and other expenses related to the coordination of
law enforcement officials and affected communities with DOJ.
CBO estimates that this provision would cost $1 million in 2008
and nearly $8 million over the 2008-2012 period.
Intergovernmental and private-sector impact: S. 535
contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as
defined in UMRA and would impose no costs on state, local, or
tribal governments.
Previous CBO estimate: On June 19, 2007, CBO transmitted a
cost estimate for H.R. 923, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil
Rights Crime Act of 2007, as ordered reported by the House
Committee on the Judiciary on June 13, 2007. The two bills are
very similar, and the CBO cost estimates are identical.
Estimate prepared by: Federal Costs: Daniel Hoople and Mark
Grabowicz; Impact on State, Local, and Tribal Governments:
Melissa Merrell; Impact on the Private Sector: Paige Piper/
Bach.
Estimate approved by: Peter H. Fontaine, Deputy Assistant
Director for Budget Analysis.
V. Regulatory Impact Evaluation
In compliance with paragraph 11(b)(1), rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee, after due
consideration, concludes that S.535 will not have significant
regulatory impact.
VI. Conclusion
Passage and enactment of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil
Rights Crime Act, S. 535, is long overdue. This bipartisan
legislation strengthens and expands the federal government's
ability to investigate and prosecute unsolved and decades-old
racially motivated hate crimes and long-term missing children
cases. To that end, it provides much needed resources and tools
to the DOJ and the FBI to investigate and prosecute such cases.
In addition, the bill authorizes the Inspectors General to
assist NCMEC in their investigations. This recognizes the
urgency in resolving these cases so that the victims' families,
and this Nation, can attain justice.
VII. Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill as Reported
In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, changes in existing law made by
S. 535, as reported, are shown as follows (existing law
proposed to be omitted is enclosed in black brackets, new
matter is printed in italic, and existing law in which no
change is proposed is shown in roman):
TITLE XXXVII OF THE CRIME CONTROL ACT OF 1990, PL 101-647, (42 U.S.C.
5779 ET SEQ.)--ADDING A NEW SECTION
3703. AUTHORITY OF INSPECTORS GENERAL.
(a) In General.--An Inspector General appointed under
section 3 or 8G of the Inspector General Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C.
App.) may authorize staff to assist the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children--
(1) by conducting reviews of inactive case files to
develop recommendations for further investigations; and
(2) by engaging in similar activities.
(b) Limitations--
(1) Priority.--An Inspector General may not permit
staff to engage in activities described in subsection
(a) if such activities will interfere with the duties
of the Inspector General under the Inspector General
Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C. App.).
(2) Funding.--No additional funds are authorized to
be appropriated to carry out this section.
VIII. Appendix
Southern Poverty Law Center
THE ``FORGOTTEN''
These are the names of 74 men and women who died between
1952 and 1968 under circumstances suggesting they were the
victims of racially motivated violence. The information below
was gathered by the Southern Poverty Law Center as it planned a
timeline of killings for the Civil Rights Memorial. The
Memorial, dedicated in 1989, includes the names of 40 civil
rights martyrs who were slain during that era. The names below
were not inscribed on the Memorial because there was
insufficient information about their deaths at the time the
Memorial was created. They are, however, identified in a
display at the Civil Rights Memorial Center as ``The
Forgotten.''
Anderson, Andrew Lee--Marion, Ark., 1963. Anderson was slain by
a group of whites and sheriff's deputies after a
white woman said he had molested her 8-year-old
daughter. A coroner's jury ruled justifiable
homicide, and no arrests were made.
Andrews, Frank--Lisman, Ala., 1964. Andrews was shot in the
back by a white sheriff's deputy. The county
solicitor said the victim was attacking another
deputy, and no arrests were made.
Banks, Isadore--Marion, Ark., 1954. Banks' charred corpse was
found chained to a tree. Black press reports
speculated he was killed by whites who wanted his
land. His property was later rented by white
farmers.
Bolden, Larry--Chattanooga, Tenn., 1958. Bolden, 15, was shot
by a white policeman. No arrests were made.
Brazier, James--Dawson, Ga., 1958. Brazier was beaten to death
in front of his wife and children by two police
officers. County Sheriff Z.T. Matthews was later
quoted in the Washington Post saying, ``There's
nothing like fear to keep niggers in line.''
Brewer, Thomas--Columbus, Ga., 1956. Brewer was instrumental in
forming a local chapter of the NAACP in 1937. He
was shot seven times outside his office by white
politician Lucio Flowers. A grand jury failed to
indict.
Brooks, Hilliard--Montgomery, Ala., 1952. Brooks was shot by a
police officer after initially refusing to get off
a city bus when the driver claimed he had not paid
his fare. A coroner said the murder was justified
because Brooks resisted arrest.
Brown, Charles--Yazoo City, Miss., 1957. A white man shot
Brown, who was visiting the white man's sister. The
Justice Department handed the case over to the
state.
Brown, Jessie--Winona, Miss., 1965. The 1965 NAACP annual
report claimed white farmer R.M. Gibson killed
Brown.
Brumfield, Carrie--Franklinton, La., 1967. Brumfield was found
shot to death in his car on a rural road. He was
shot once in the chest with a .22-caliber revolver.
Brumfield, Eli--McComb, Miss., 1961. Police officer B.F. Elmore
alleged self-defense after shooting Brumfield.
Police claimed Brumfield jumped from his car with a
pocket knife after police pulled him over for
speeding.
Caston, Silas (Ernest)--Jackson, Miss., 1964. Caston was shot
by a local police officer. CORE and NAACP filed a
civil suit against Deputy Sheriff Herbert Sullivan.
The result of that suit is unknown.
Cloninger, Clarence--Gaston, N.C., 1960. Cloninger died while
incarcerated. Authorities denied him medical
attention after he suffered a heart attack.
Countryman, Willie--Dawson, Ga., 1958. Police officer W.B.
Cherry was cleared of murder charges after police
said he shot Countryman ``in self defense in the
line of duty.''
Dahmon, Vincent--Natchez, Miss., 1966. Dahmon, 65, was shot in
the head around the time of a march in support of
James Meredith.
Daniels, Woodrow Wilson--Water Valley, Miss., 1958. Sheriff
Buster Treloar, identified by four witnesses as the
man who beat Daniels to death in a prison, was
freed after 23 minutes of deliberation by an all-
white jury. ``By God,'' Treloar said after the
trial. ``Now I can get back to rounding up
bootleggers and damn niggers.''
Dumas, Joseph Hill--Perry, Fla., 1962. Florida Governor Farris
Bryant suspended constable Henry Sauls in
connection with the shooting of 19-year-old Dumas.
Sauls was indicted by a federal grand jury. The
result of indictment is unclear.
Evans, Pheld--Canton, Miss., 1964. Medgar Evers identified
Evans as having been killed under mysterious
circumstances.
Evanston, J.E.--Long Lake, Miss., 1955. Evanston's body is
fished out of Long Lake in December. Evanston was a
teacher in the local elementary school.
Greene, Mattie--Ringgold, Ga., 1960. Greene is killed when a
bomb explodes under her house.
Greenwood, Jasper--Vicksburg, Miss., 1964. Greenwood was found
shot to death near his car on a rural road. Police
said the slaying was not racially motivated.
Griffin, Jimmie Lee--Sturgis, Miss., 1965. Griffin was killed
in a hit-and-run accident. A coroner's report
revealed Griffin was run over at least twice.
Hall, A.C.--Macon, Ga., 1962. Hall was shot and killed after a
white woman claimed he stole a pistol from her car.
He was shot by police as he ran away.
Hamilton, Rogers--Lowndes County, Ala., 1957. Hamilton, 19, was
taken from his home by a group of white men and
shot to death. Hamilton was allegedly warned to
stay away from black girls in the town of
Hayneville. No charges were brought in the case.
Hampton, Collie--Winchester, Ky., 1966. Hampton was shot by
police officers after allegedly threatening a
police officer.
Harris, Alphonso--Albany, Ga., 1966. Harris, a member of SCLC,
died after allegedly organizing a walkout by black
students at a school in Grenada, Miss. He was
killed in Georgia in response to previous civil
rights activity there.
Henry, Izell--Greensburg, La., 1954. Henry was brutally beaten
a day after voting. He suffered permanent brain
damage and died five years later.
Hill, Arthur James--Villa Rica, Ga., 1965. Hill was shot during
an argument with whites. One suspect was held on
voluntary manslaughter charge.
Hunter, Ernest--St. Mary's, Ga., 1958. Hunter was shot and
killed while in jail following an arrest on charges
he was interfering with an officer.
Jackson, Luther--Philadelphia, Miss., 1959. Jackson was killed
by police after he and his girlfriend were found
talking in their car, which was stalled in a ditch.
Police claim Jackson attacked them.
Jells, Ernest--Clarksdale, Miss., 1964. Jells was accused of
stealing a banana from a grocery and pointing a
rifle at pursuing police officers. The officers
were exonerated.
Jeter, Joe Franklin--Atlanta, Ga., 1958. Jeter was killed by
police in front of his family, who were also
arrested and convicted in connection with a
gathering that police said turned into a melee. A
grand jury found the slaying was justified.
Lee, John--Goshen Springs, Miss., 1965. Lee's body was found
beaten on a country road.
Lee, Willie Henry--Rankin County, Miss., 1965. Lee, who was
known to have attended civil rights meetings, was
found beaten on a country road. An autopsy revealed
he died by strangulation from gas.
Lillard, Richard--Nashville, Tenn., 1958. Lillard died after a
beating from three white guards at a local
workhouse. All three were acquitted of murder
charges.
Love, George--Indianola, Miss., 1958. Love was killed in a gun
battle with police who believed he was responsible
for a murder and arson. He was later cleared of any
connection to the murder.
Mahone, Maybelle--Molena, Ga., 1956. Mahone was killed by a
white man for ``sassing'' him. The man was
initially found guilty, but later found not guilty
by reason of insanity.
Maxwell, Sylvester--Canton, Miss., 1963. Maxwell's castrated
and mutilated body was found by his brother-in-law
less than 500 yards from the home of a white
family.
McNair, Robert--Pelahatchie, Miss., 1965. McNair was killed by
a town constable.
Melton, Clinton--Sumner, Miss., 1956. Elmer Otis Kimbell was
cleared in Melton's death. Kimbell claimed Melton
fired at him three times before he returned fire
with a shotgun. No gun was found in Melton's car or
on his body.
Miller, James Andrew--Jackson, Ga., 1964. Miller was shot by
whites a few days after being beaten. A suspect was
cleared after the coroner ruled he fired in self-
defense.
Mixon, Booker T.--Clarksdale, Miss., 1959. Mixon's body was
found lying on the side of the road, completely
nude. Police claimed it was a hit-and-run, though
family members cited his naked body and the
extensive amount of flesh torn from his body as
evidence of murder.
Montgomery, Nehemiah--Merigold, Miss., 1964. Montgomery, 60,
was shot by police after allegedly refusing to pay
for gas. Police were acquitted, and the shooting
was called justifiable homicide.
Morris, Frank--Ferriday, La., 1964. Morris, who owned a shoe
store, was killed when a gas stove exploded during
an arson. Morris, who lived in a room adjoining the
store, was ordered to return to his room by the men
who started the fire. An extensive Justice
Department investigation was conducted, but the
outcome is unclear.
Motley, James Earl--Wetumpka, Ala., 1967. Elmore County Deputy
Sheriff Harvey Conner was cleared in the death of
Motley, who died in prison after suffering three
severe blows to the head.
O'Quinn, Sam--Centreville, Miss., 1959. O'Quinn, derided by
some local whites for being ``uppity,'' was shot
after joining the NAACP.
Orsby, Hubert--Pickens, Miss., 1964. Orsby's body was found in
the Black River. It was reported that he was
wearing a t-shirt with ``CORE,'' written on it,
representing the Congress of Racial Equality.
Payne, Larry--Memphis, Tenn., 1968. Payne, 16, was killed by a
shotgun blast fired by a patrolman as he emerged
from a basement in a housing development.
Pickett, C.H.--Columbus, Ga., 1957. The part-time minister was
beaten to death while in police custody.
Pitts, Albert
Pitts, David
Johnson, Marshall
McPharland, Ernest--Monroe, La., 1960. A white employer was
arrested and then released in the shooting of five
of his employees, four of whom died. The victims
were accused of making threats. The employer was
never charged.
Powell, Jimmy--Brooklyn, N.Y., 1964. Powell, 15, was fatally
shot by a Brooklyn police officer. The officer's
exoneration by a grand jury sparked riots in
Harlem.
Prather, William Roy--Corinth, Miss., 1959. Prather, 15, was
killed in an anti-black Halloween prank. One of
eight youths involved was indicted on manslaughter
charges.
Queen, Johnny--Fayette, Miss., 1965. A white off-duty constable
was named in the pistol slaying of Johnny Queen.
The shooting was not connected to any arrest.
Rasberry, Donald--Okolona, Miss., 1965. Rasberry was shot to
death by his plantation boss.
Robinson, Fred--Edisto Island,, S.C., 1960. Robinson's body was
found washed ashore on August 5. His eyes were
reportedly gouged out and his skull crushed.
Robinson, Johnny--Birmingham, Ala., 1963. Robinson, 16, was
shot in the back by a policeman on the same day as
the 16th Street Church bombing. Police said the
victim had thrown stones at white youths driving
through the area.
Sanford, Willie Joe--Hawkinsville, Ga., 1957. Sanford's naked
body was raised from the bottom of a creek where it
had been wired to undergrowth in the water. The
result of a grand jury investigation is unknown.
Scott Jr., Marshall--New Orleans, La., 1965. Scott was put into
solitary confinement in a New Orleans jail. He died
without receiving any medical attention. There were
no arrests in the case.
Shelby, Jessie James--Yazoo City, Miss., 1956. Shelby, 23, was
fatally wounded by a police officer who claimed he
shot Shelby because he resisted arrest.
Singleton, W.G.--Shelby, N.C., 1957. Singleton died from third-
degree burns suffered in an explosion and fire.
Smith, Ed--State Line, Miss., 1958. A grand jury refused to
indict L.D. Clark in the death of Smith, who was
shot in his yard in front of his wife. Clark later
reportedly bragged about the killing.
Stewart, Eddie James--Crystal Springs, Miss., 1966. Stewart was
reportedly beaten and shot while in police custody.
Police claimed he was shot while trying to escape.
Taylor, Isaiah--Ruleville, Miss., 1964. Taylor was shot by a
police officer after allegedly lunging at him with
a knife. The shooting was ruled a justifiable
homicide.
Thomas, Freddie Lee--LeFlore County, Miss., 1965. Federal
investigators looked into the death of Thomas, 16.
Thomas' brother believed he was murdered as a
warning against black voter registration. The
result of the investigation is unknown.
Triggs, Saleam--Hattiesburg, Miss., 1965. The body of Mrs.
Triggs was found mysteriously burned to death.
Varner, Hubert--Atlanta, Ga., 1966. Varner, 16, was killed when
a gunman fired into a group of black teenagers. The
gunman allegedly believed the teenagers made a
comment to his white companion. The result of a
federal investigation is unknown.
Walker, Clifton--Adams County, Miss., 1964. Walker was killed
by a shotgun blast at close range. The result of a
federal investigation is unknown.
Waymers, James--Allendale, S.C., 1965. A white man is acquitted
in the shooting death of Waymers after entering a
plea of self-defense.
Wilder, John Wesley--Ruston, La., 1965. A white policeman was
accused of Wilder's death, and a coroner's jury
ruled the slaying was justifiable homicide.
Williamson, Rodell--Camden, Ala., 1967. Williamson's body was
recovered from the Alabama River after it snagged
on a fisherman's line. Williamson was active in the
Wilcox County branch of the NAACP, but local
sheriff P.C. Jenkins said there were no signs of
foul play.
Wooden, Archie--Camden, Ala., 1967. Wooden, 16, bled to death
after either jumping or falling onto a sapling in a
ditch. The cut sapling severed an artery. A
newspaper report said the Mobile office of the FBI
made a civil rights violation inquiry into the
incident. The results of that inquiry are unknown.