Jury Acquits ‘Cross City Five’
BACKGROUND: In tiny Cross City, Fla., the gunshots fired by Jody Akins last January killed a man and put a national spotlight on Dixie County (View, June 17).
Akins, a 30-year-old white man and son of a prominent contractor, was charged with first-degree murder after a drug deal turned into a fight and he fired randomly into a crowd outside a bar in the black neighborhood called the Quarters. Terrence Royce Rutledge, 24, was killed.
Five black men from the crowd were later charged with third-degree murder, riot and battery in connection with the melee.
UPDATE: In July an all-white Cross City jury found Akins guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison, the maximum.
The men known as the “Cross City Five” were tried in Live Oak, about 70 miles away, after an impartial jury could not be seated in Dixie County. Last month a jury of five white women and one black man acquitted them of murder and rioting charges, but found four of the five guilty of lesser charges.
The Cross City Five expressed satisfaction with the verdict, as did their attorney, Angela Ball, who had been criticized by some civil rights activists. Now free pending sentencing, the Cross City Five spent seven months in lock-up.
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