Even before the trial got under way in Selma, Circuit Solicitor Blanchard McLeod admitted: "It is a weak case.
I do not have the facts." After four days of testimony last week, the all-white jury concurred. It took just 95 minutes to acquit three white fellow citizens of the murder of James J. Reeb, a white Unitarian minister from Boston who was clubbed to death in the Alabama city last March after participating in civil rights demonstrations.
Weak case or not, McLeod's assistant, Virgis Ashworth, handled-the prosecution vigorously and intelligently enough to give the defendants some bad moments. His best witnesses...
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