by Matt Saldaña
Photo by Matt Saldaña
Jan. 29, 2006
At approximately 3:15 p.m. on Monday in the James O. Eastland Federal Building in Jackson, U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda Anderson denied bond to James Seale, the 71-year old former Klansman held in federal custody for two counts of kidnapping resulting in death and one count of conspiracy for his role in the abductions and murders of Charles Moore and Henry Dee in 1964. Forty-two years after the murders, on Jan. 25, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez announced grand jury indictment charges against Seale.
“Neither the weight of the crime nor its circumstances have been diminished by the passage of time,” Anderson said.
Anderson said she considered the violent and horrific nature of the alleged crime, which Special Litigation Counsel Paige Fitzgerald referred to as “so horrific it boggles the mind,” in denying Seale’s bail. She also took into account Seale’s concealment of his brother in Alabama during a pre-trial interview, and the chance that he could flee in his R.V.
Fitzgerald, who argued on behalf of the prosecution for a bond denial, referred to Seale—who, if convicted, would face life imprisonment—as “a man with nothing to lose.” Anderson agreed, saying Seale had “little incentive to stay” in Roxie, Miss.
Public defender Kathy Nester, arguing on behalf of Seale, objected several times, seeking to prevent Fitzgerald from presenting details of the crime at the bond hearing. Anderson overruled because those details had already appeared in the indictment report. Nester also objected when Fitzgerald referred to the Ku Klux Klan as a “terrorist organization,” though a federal grand jury first labeled the KKK a terrorist organization in 1869.
[View the entire article at the Jackson Free Press.]