Reputed Klansman Appeals Murder Convictions

By: Mary Foster, Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS - (AP) A reputed Ku Klux Klan member serving three life sentences for his role in the 1964 abduction and killings of two black Mississippi teenagers should not have been convicted because the statute of limitations had expired, his lawyer argued Monday.

James Ford Seale was convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy in the abductions of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, both 19, who disappeared from Franklin County in Mississippi May 2, 1964. Their decomposed bodies were later pulled from the muddy waters of the Mississippi River.

Kathy Nester, Seale's attorney, said Congress imposed a five-year statute of limitations in 1972, in the same act that abolished the death penalty for kidnapping.

Seale was convicted June 14, 2007.

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