Edgar Ray Killen was sentenced to the maximum 60 years in prison on Thursday after being convicted of manslaughter in the death of three civil rights volunteers in 1964. Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon sentenced Killen to the maximum term for each of the three cases and said the sentences will run consecutively.
Killen, who was admitted to being a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in 1964, was sentenced exactly 41 years to the day of the disappearance of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman on June 21, 1964. Their badly beaten bodies were found 44 days later buried in an earthen dam.
When announcing the sentence, Gordon said he took no pleasure in giving it, but added, 'I have taken that into consideration that there are three lives involved in this case and the three lives should absolutely be respected.'
Killen's attorney, James McIntyre has already announced that he will appeal the conviction. He claims that the jury should not have been given a choice of convicting Killen for manslaughter. The jury said they would have acquitted Killen of murder since there was no direct link presented at trial proving the Killen ordered the attacks on the three civil rights workers.
Judge Gordon has a reputation of being a no nonesense judge who hands out tough sentences. He also took into consideration that Killen, now 80, had been convicted in 1975 of threatening a woman over the telephone. Killen served five months in jail for that case which Gordon himself prosecuted.
The death of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman helped pass the Civil Rights Act in 1964 as public opinion was galvanized by the brutal murders of the three volunteers. It was later dramatized in the 1988 film 'Mississippi Burning.'
Killen's attorneys will also make a motion for a new trial on Monday. Judge Gordon is unlikely to grant that request. It appears likely the Killen, a part-time Baptist minister, will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
