Jackson Free Press

Also see: JFP investigative archive/timeline of Dee-Moore case

James Ford Seale's latest appeal has fallen on at least a couple of deaf ears. Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans upheld the reputed Ku Klux Klan member's 2007 conviction for kidnapping and conspiracy in the deaths of two young Mississippi men in 1964 in a 2-to-1 opinion.

The victims, Henry Dee and Charles Moore, were both 19 at the time of their murders. After tying the two young men to a tree in the Homochitto National Forest and severely beating them with bean sticks, Seale and his companions allegedly took them across the state line into Louisiana, then back to Palmyra Shoot, an offshoot of the river where Warren County, Miss., and Madison and Tensas Parishes in Louisiana converge.

Alleged Klansman Ernest Parker, now deceased, owned property there, where informants say they tied the pair to a Jeep engine block and threw them overboard to drown.

FBI records from 1964, reported by the JFP in 2005, revealed that Seale allegedly told the informant that shooting the pair before throwing them overboard would have splattered the boat with blood.

Seale's defense attorneys have persisted in appealing the 2007 conviction on the basis of whether the statute of limitations has expired on the federal kidnapping charges. They reportedly intend to pursue appeals to the Supreme Court.

See the JFP's archive on the Dee-Moore case.

Previous Commentsshow

Seal's attorney is going to appeal this case to the US Supreme Court? Since clarence thomas' wife has become a Tea Party Member, he just might get a pass by clarence. There should not be any cahance of this mean, low-life going free. Too bad that his partner died before being brought to justice. Seal should be in jail as long as Dee and Moore stay in their graves. Just saying.

justjess

Mar 16 2010

Re Thomas' wife: She's long been a rabid right-winger. What's remarkable is how little the media have noticed until now. Re Seale: His main partner is alive and turned on him. However, many of his helpers have died. And it's really too bad that that daddy Clyde didn't live long enough to see justice for his deeds, and the way he raised them boys.

DonnaLadd

Mar 16 2010

What an odd thing, to drag Clarence Thomas into this discussion. Dare I ask why Justice Thomas's wife's political views might result in Seale getting "a pass by clarence"?

Mark Geoffriau

Mar 16 2010

He doesn't do any thinking on his own. He is a justice to be ashamed of, in my opinion and should not be a Supreme Court Justice. I did not think that he should have been convicted in the Anita Hill charge, but, I do think that he was guilty of not being qualified to take a seat on the bench of the US Supreme Court. He has too much baggage: Hates black folks and continues to do everything he can to tear us down and apart. Sorry Mark, I can't do clarence.

justjess

Mar 18 2010

[quote]He doesn't do any thinking on his own. He is a justice to be ashamed of, in my opinion and should not be a Supreme Court Justice.[/quote] Do you have any evidence of this claim? Or are you just asserting its veracity? From the accounts I've read, the bare agreement between Thomas and Scalia's voting record (which I'm assuming is what you're referring to) isn't particularly indicative of one following the other (in either direction). In any given year, there have been other pairs of Justices who vote as closely or more closely than Thomas and Scalia. Moreover, when you actually read the opinions by each Justice, Thomas and Scalia frequently differ in their approach, even when voting the same. There have also been some accounts of Thomas's opinions shifting the votes of other Justices, including Scalia. I'm sure it's probably just that he can't think for himself and hates black people, though.

Mark Geoffriau

Mar 18 2010

Many commentators have noted that Thomas almost never asks questions from the bench, and he rarely writes opinions. Scalia is, in my humble opinion, a hypocrite and a right-wing ideologue, but at least he is an engaged hypocrite and right-wing ideologue. Thomas is on permanent vacation.

Brian C Johnson

Mar 18 2010

Seems like criticism without knowledge -- Supreme Court deliberations are private, and his immediate colleagues seem to hold him in high esteem. Given my own personal ignorance of the man (I've never met him), I'll take their word over an uninvolved third party. Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun were also typically silent from the bench (according to the all-knowing oracle that is Wikipedia), but I don't see the same criticism leveled at them.

Mark Geoffriau

Mar 18 2010

The internets is so awesome. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/justices/opinions.html

WMartin

Mar 18 2010

You're pretty quick with accusations of ignorance considering that you don't seem to understand the difference between deliberations and oral arguments.

Brian C Johnson

Mar 18 2010

'scuse me? I'm sorry if you read "without knowldge" as some kind of personal insult -- it was not intended as such -- I am without that same knowledge, as is anyone not privy to the secret deliberations of the Supreme Court Justices. On the contrary, I'm pointing out exactly what you just said -- you are using only the public part of the judicial process to determine that Thomas is "on permanent vacation." Until you have access to the private deliberations, it would seem to me that the only valid criticism you or justjess could make is that Thomas ought to ask more questions during oral arguments -- and if that's your criticism, then I'd need to see at least an attempt at an argument for the necessity of every Supreme Court Justice asking numerous and frequent questions. Given that this kind of criticism has not been leveled at other so-called "silent" Justices in the past, like Marshall or Blackmun, nor have you or justjess made any attempt to develop such an argument, I admit I'm left wondering at the basis for your and justjess's dislike for Thomas.

Mark Geoffriau

Mar 19 2010

I did not regard it as a personal insult, and your point on the limited importance of asking questions during oral arguments is well taken. But we are hardly the first to make the argument that Thomas is a weak justice. As Andrew Leonard puts it, "In his remarkably undistinguished 20-year stint as a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas has rarely called attention to himself for original jurisprudential thinking." This view is widely held among legal scholars, though some conservatives would disagree. This assessment is not just a matter of politics. As I said before, Scalia disgusts me, but his impact on the court is undeniable. As an inexhaustible champion of originalism--a sort of legal fundamentalism--he has clearly shifted the thinking of the court. By most accounts, Thomas has rarely swayed his colleagues, and he will not leave much of a legacy.

Brian C Johnson

Mar 19 2010

Fair enough. Perhaps the difference here is really that we find different values to be most important in our Supreme Court Justices -- I'm not terribly concerned with appointing Justices who "call attention" to themselves for their "original jurisprudential thinking", nor enamored of Justices who are particularly concerned with their own legacies. I realize he's probably about as well-loved as Clarence Thomas is around here, but Thomas Sowell has a handful of excellent columns that reference several actual judicial opinions by Thomas, particularly his dissents, that demonstrate someone who is certainly not "on permanent vacation."

Mark Geoffriau

Mar 19 2010

I acknowledge that the "permanent vacation" comment was hyperbole. I stand behind my comment that he is not particularly engaged.

Brian C Johnson

Mar 19 2010