Nation IN BRIEF : TENNESSEE : Suspect Held in 1963 Civil Rights Slaying

Byron De La Beckwith was arrested in Chattanooga, Tenn., for the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, setting the stage for his third trial on charges in the killing. De La Beckwith, 70, was tried twice in 1964 for the slaying of Evers, but both trials ended in hung juries and charges against him were dropped in 1969. Hamilton County spokesman Jim Hillis said Beckwith had been arrested for murder as a fugitive from Mississippi but that the Mississippi warrant listed a murder charge without mentioning the victim’s name. A grand jury in Jackson, Miss., recently completed deliberations on whether to reopen the 27-year old case, but Mississippi law keeps that vote secret until an arrest is made. Evers, 37 when he died, was field secretary for the Mississippi branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. He was shot in the back with a high-powered rifle as he stood in the carport of his Jackson home on June 12, 1963.