Attorneys for a reputed Ku Klux Klansman are expected to argue before a federal appeals court the week of May 18 that the imprisoned man should be set free and his 2007 conviction be overturned in the 1964 abductions of two teenagers who were found slain.
James Ford Seale, now 73, was convicted in the revived civil rights-era case involving the abductions of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee. The decomposed bodies of the two 19-year-old friends were pulled from a Mississippi River backwater in 1964.
Seale was serving three life sentences when the convictions were overturned in September. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the statute of limitations had elapsed and acquitted Seale of the decades-old crime.
Federal prosecutors quickly asked for a review by the full New Orleans court, which granted the petition on Nov. 14. This past week, the court put the Seale arguments on its docket for the week of May 18.
Magnolia Tribune
