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U.S. District Court Judge Tom S. Lee handed down a ruling yesterday that will allow a lawsuit against Franklin County to move forward. The 2008 suit, filed by the families of Henry Dee and Charles Moore, claims that local law enforcement was complicit in the two young men's killings.
According to a 2007 court testimony, Klansman James Ford Seale, now 73, abducted Dee and Moore in 1964. The two young black men were both 19 at the time. Seale, who is currently serving three life sentences on federal kidnapping and conspiracy charges, colluded with fellow Klansmen to beat and then drown them, probably while they were still alive, eyewitness testimony revealed, in an offshoot of the Mississippi River. A couple fishing in the area were the first to find evidence of the bodies, which were initially thought to be those of three missing civil rights workers later discovered in a Neshoba County dam. Dee and Moore's badly beaten and decomposing bodies were found weighted down with Jeep engine parts and railroad track.
Until the Seale trial in 2007, no one was held responsible for the boys' deaths, however evidence suggests that Franklin County officials were aware of Seale's involvement at the time. The suit contends that no charges were brought because then-Franklin County Sheriff, Wayne Hutto, now deceased, was in collusion with the Klan. County officials worked "in a collusive and unlawful relationship" with the Ku Klux Klan and that "in 1964 defendant Franklin County had an unlawful, racially motivated policy and practice of protecting the Ku Klux Klan," the suit states.
Franklin County wanted the suit dismissed, saying that the statute of limitations had run out on the families' ability to sue, but Lee ruled that the clock didn't start until 2007.
"It's a huge ruling for the family," Dennis Sweet, a Jackson attorney representing the victims' relatives, told the Associated Press. "It gives us the chance to prove our case. There needs to be some recognition of the wrong done by Franklin County."
Seale's court-appointed defense team is currently appealing his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court based on a statute of limitations argument.
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