United States v. Price

United States v. Cecil Price, et al. , also known as the "Mississippi Burning trial'" (after the film of that name), was one of the most famous criminal trials in American history. The United States charged a group of 18 men with conspiring in a Ku Klux Klan plot to murder three young civil rights workers (Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman) in Philadelphia, Mississippi on June 21, 1964 (see Mississippi civil rights workers murders). The trial, conducted in Meridian, Mississippi with U.S. District Court Judge W. Harold Cox presiding, resulted in convictions of 7 of the 18 defendants.

The verdict

Guilty verdicts were returned against:

• Cecil Price, the chief deputy sheriff of Neshoba County
• Sam H. Bowers, Jr., of Laurel, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
• Horace Doyle Barnette, a one-time Meridian salesman
• Jimmy Arledge, a Meridian truck driver
• Billy Wayne Posey, a Williamsville service station operator
• Jimmie Snowden, a Meridian laundry truck driver
• Alton W. Roberts, a Meridian salesman

Not guilty verdicts were returned for:

• Lawrence A. Rainey, the sheriff of Neshoba County
• Bernard L. Akin, a Meridian housetrailer......
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