TRIALS Hung Jury For the eleven days of his trial, Byron De La Beckwith, 43, accused killer of Mississippi N.A.A.C.P. Leader Medgar Evers, performed more like a circus clown than a defendant in a first-degree murder case. Constantly shooting his French cuffs, he propped his feet up on a nearby chair, swigged soda pop, glowered at Negro news men, hallooed to white spectators, was once restrained by a bailiff from saun tering over to the jury box to chat with his peers, and with the exaggerated Southern courtliness upon which he so much prides himself, even offered cigars to Prosecutor William L. Waller.
But after the jury had been out for a while, Beckwith quit hamming around, sat in tense silence until—22 hours after they had been handed the case for a verdict—the jurors returned to say that they could not agree. Circuit Judge Leon Hendrick declared a mistrial, and Beckwith, with nary a smirk nor a smile, got up and went back to his cell.
No sooner had this celebrated civil rights murder trial ended in a hung jury, split seven to five for acquittal, than there were murmurs of surprise. Many had expected "Mississippi justice." But that was not the case. Judge Hendrick had presided wisely and fairly. Prosecutor Waller, 37, had won the admiration of Northern newsmen for his aggressive presentation. And Defendant Beckwith had been tried be fore a jury of his peers—even if it was all male, all white, and all Mississippian.
"To No One Else." The case against Beckwith, a Greenwood fertilizer salesman, hinged on a .30/06 Enfield rifle, found near a clump of sweetgum trees across the street from Evers' home in Jackson on the morning after the murder. A fingerprint of Beckwith's was found on the weapon's telescopic sight.
Prosecution witnesses identified the rifle as Beckwith's. One told of trading Beckwith a Japanese-made sight—identical to the one on the Enfield—in return for a revolver. An FBI expert swore the fingerprint belonged to Beckwith and to "no one else in the world."
Two Jackson cab drivers told how, four days before Evers was ambushed on June 12, Beckwith had asked directions to Evers' home, saying, "I've got to find where he lives in a couple of days." A young woman said that she had seen a car similar to Beckwith's parked near Evers' house 50 minutes before the shooting. But because the bullet that killed Medgar Evers was too badly shattered to produce positive results in ballistics tests, the state never did prove that it had been fired by the rifle in the sweetgum grove.
"No, Suh." When the defense's turn came, Chief Counsel Hardy Lott, a former president of Greenwood's white Citizens Council, which had solicited funds for Beckwith's defense, called 20 witnesses, compared with the prosecution's 36. Two were Greenwood cops who claimed they had seen Beckwith in Greenwood, a fast 90-minute drive from Jackson, shortly before and after the killing.