Verdict Upheld in Rights Leader’s Death

Mississippi’s Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith on Monday in the 1963 assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, saying he got a fair trial despite the 31 years that elapsed between the crime and the verdict.

“Miscreants brought before the bar of justice in this state must, sooner or later, face the cold realization that justice, slow and plodding though she may be, is certain in the state of Mississippi,” Justice Mike Mills wrote.

The ailing Beckwith, now 77, was tried twice in 1964, but both all-white juries deadlocked. The case was resurrected and he was convicted of murder in 1994 by a jury of eight blacks and four whites.

Evers, field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP, was killed in his driveway by a sniper.

Beckwith, a fertilizer salesman, claimed he was miles away at the time, but his fingerprint was found on the scope of a rifle believed to be the murder weapon.

The heart of Beckwith’s appeal was that he was denied a speedy and fair trial.