United States v. Price

United States v. Cecil Price, et al., also known as the Mississippi Burning trial or Mississippi Burning case, was a criminal trial where the United States charged a group of 18 men with conspiring in a Ku Klux Klan plot to murder three young civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi on June 21, 1964, during Freedom Summer. The trial, conducted in Meridian, Mississippi with U.S. District Court Judge W. Harold Cox presiding, resulted in convictions of 7 of the 18 defendants. Another defendant, James Edward Jordan, pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution.

Initial proceedings

Indictments were originally presented against 18 defendants, three of whom were officials of the Mississippi government, for conspiracy to commit as well as substantial violations of deprivation of rights secured or protected by the Constitution. The District Court initially dismissed the indictments, but the dismissal was unanimously reversed by the Supreme Court upon appeal. The trial then proceeded. The Supreme Court declared that the victims had been denied due process under the terms of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. That law was still in effect and it made it a federal crime for state
officials to deny a person any of the rights and privileges guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution because of race. The Court further stipulated that actions by any private citizen who participated with the state official also came under the scope of the act.

Verdict

The case was decided in 1966.
Guilty verdicts were returned against:

Cecil Price, the chief deputy sheriff of Neshoba County, Mississippi
Sam H. Bowers Jr., of Laurel, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
Horace Doyle Barnette, a one-time Meridian salesman
Jimmy Arledge, a Meridian truck driver
Billy Wayne Posey, a Williamsville service station operator
Jimmy Snowden, a Meridian laundry truck driver
Alton W. Roberts, a Meridian salesman who shot two of the three civil rights workers

Not guilty verdicts were returned for:

Lawrence A. Rainey, the sheriff of Neshoba County
Bernard L. Akin, a Meridian housetrailer dealer
Travis M. Barnette, a Meridian mechanic and half-brother of Horace Doyle Barnette
James T. Harris, a Meridian truck driver
Frank J. Herndon, the operator of a Meridian drive-in restaurant
Olen Lovell Burrage, the owner of the farm on which the bodies of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman were buried
Herman Tucker, the builder of the dam in which the bodies were found
Richard A. Willis, a one-time Philadelphia policeman

No verdict was reached for:

Ethel Glen Barnett, the Democratic nominee for Neshoba County sheriff
Jerry McGrew Sharpe, a pulpwood hauler
Edgar Ray Killen, a fundamentalist minister and sawmill operator. In the case of Killen, the jury deadlocked after a lone juror stated she "could never convict a preacher". The case against Killen was reopened in 1999, and on June 21, 2005, he was found guilty of three counts in state court of manslaughter for orchestrating the killings. Killen was sentenced to 60 years in prison, and died in prison in 2018.

Jury

An all-white, mostly working-class jury consisting of five men and seven women heard the case. The jurors were:

Langdon Smith Anderson, a Lumberton oil exploration operator and member of the State Agricultural and Industrial Board
Mrs. S.M. Green, a Hattiesburg housewife
Mrs. Lessie Lowery, a Hiwannee grocery store owner
Howard O. Winborn, a Petal pipefitter
Harmon W. Raspberry, a Stonewall textile worker
Mrs. Gussie B. Staton, a Union housewife
Jessie P. Hollingsworth, a Moss Point electrician
Mrs. James C. Heflin, a Lake production worker
Mrs. Nell B. Dedeaux, a Lumberton housewife
Willie V. Arneson, a Meridian secretary
Edsell Z. Parks, a Brandon clerk
Adelaide H. Comer, a cook at an Ocean Springs school cafeteria

Penalties

The penalties exacted by the federal penal system were,

for Price: sentenced to six years in prison, and served four years
for Bowers: sentenced to ten years in prison, and served six years
for Barnette: sentenced to three years in prison
for Arledge: sentenced to three years in prison
for Posey: sentenced to six years in prison
for Snowden: sentenced to three years in prison, and served two years
for Roberts: sentenced to ten years in prison, and served six years

Film adaptation

In 1988, the film Mississippi Burning was loosely based on the trial and the events surrounding the murder. It starred Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as two FBI agents who travel to Mississippi to uncover the events surrounding the disappearance of three civil rights workers.
Several of the fictitious characters in the movie were based on real-life defendants in the trial. Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell was based on Cecil Ray Price, Sheriff Ray Stuckey was based on Sheriff Lawrence Rainey, and Frank Bailey was based on Alton W. Roberts. The film also starred R. Lee Ermey and Frances McDormand.