Following the conviction of a former Ku Klux Klan member for the 1963 bombing of an Alabama church and the death of four teenage black girls, campaigners have demanded the trial of the last surviving suspect of the bombing. Mr Bobby Frank Cherry was indicted by a grand jury but his trial was suspended after his defence team raised questions about his mental competence.
"Now it's time to go after Cherry. I am tired of hearing about his mental competency. They have tried mentally retarded black men," said the Rev Abraham Woods, a black minister who help persuade the FBI to reopen the church bombing case.
Although two wrongs do not make a right, he could have added that the US continues to execute the mentally incompetent. On Tuesday, a jury of eight whites and four blacks in Birmingham, Alabama, deliberated for 2-1/2 hours before finding Thomas Blanton (62) guilty of first-degree murder.
The jurors had heard a week of legal arguments and evidence, including photographs of the girls and an audiotape secretly recorded 37 years earlier. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Blanton insisted on his innocence to the end and his defence lawyer told the jury that although his client was clearly a loud-mouthed racist and a disagreeable man, that was not enough to convict. He received four life terms, one for each of the murdered girls.
His conviction hinged on evidence discovered by a local FBI agent, Mr Rob Langford, in 1993 after appeals from civil rights leaders to reopen the long-dormant case. Mr Langford found some 9,000 secret documents and audio tapes withheld by the FBI from the prosecuting authorities.
A Justice Department investigation suggests that the files were withheld at the instigation of the then director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, despite appeals to the agency from President John F. Kennedy and his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, for prosecutions. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church had taken place during a key phase of the desegregation campaign and provided a rallying point for important civil rights legislation. This was agreed to only a few months later.
The chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, Mr Julian Bond, said the Blanton conviction was commendable.
"If Southerners want to put this era behind them, this is the best way to do it - by bringing to justice the terrorists who tried and failed to stop the movement for democracy," Mr Bond said. "This is great news."
