Cases like this are where my opposition to the death penalty gets a little shaky :

Killen, a part-time preacher and sawmill operator, was tried in 1967 on federal charges of violating the victims’ civil rights. But the all-white jury deadlocked, with one juror saying she could not convict a preacher. Seven others were convicted, but none served more than six years.

The trial moved along swiftly, with testimony over only four days. Many of the witnesses from the 1967 trial now dead; this time, their testimony was read aloud to the jury from the transcripts.

Chaney, a black Mississippian, and Goodman and Schwerner, white New Yorkers, were in Neshoba County to look into the torching of a black church and help register black voters during what was called Freedom Summer.

The three were stopped for speeding on the night of the attack, jailed briefly, and then released, after which they were followed out of town by a gang of Klansmen and intercepted.

Witnesses – primarily Klansmen – testified that Killen was a local Klan organizer who led meetings where members discussed the “elimination” of Schwerner, whom they called “Goatee” because of his beard.

Witnesses said on the day of the slayings, Killen drove about 35 miles to Meridian and rounded up carloads of Klansmen to intercept the three men in their station wagon. According to testimony, Killen told some Klansmen to get plastic gloves and helped arrange for a bulldozer to bury the bodies.

Our country should be ashamed of the fact that it took 41 years to send this son of a bitch to jail…

…and we should be even more ashamed that there are at least 11 Republican Senators who aren’t willing to condemn the evil acts of monsters like Edgar Ray Killen.