Inspiring his audience of mostly law students to "carry the torch of justice into the next millennium," Assistant District Attorney Bobby DeLaughter ('77) presented a fall lecture recounting his quest that led to the retrial and conviction of Medger Evers' assassin Byron De La Beckwith. In 1994, DeLaughter successfully spearheaded the prosecution of the white supremacist in the June 12, 1963, sniper shooting death of the Mississippi NAACP field secretary.

In pin-drop silence in the Lamar Law Center's Moot Court Room, the sagacious prosecutor told an incredible story of finding missing old evidence and coming up with "something new" in order to ensure a conviction 31 years after Beckwith's first trial.

DeLaughter's account was like pieces of a puzzle falling into place, as he recalled his five-year investigation. It included not only uncovering missing old evidence - including the murder weapon, a transcript from the first trial, a partial police report, crime scene photos and the allowance of testimony by now-deceased witnesses from the first trial - but also discovering a confession by Beckwith.

"I always felt like we needed something new, something that (original prosecutor Bill) Waller didn't have. Even if it wasn't necessary legally, I thought a jury psychologically would insist on it," he said.

The fresh evidence was provided by his friend who was serving as the local counsel for Orion Pictures in a defamation law suit brought by the Ku Klux Klan against the film company for the Klan's portrayal in the film Mississippi Burning. Preparing for the defense, the attorney uncovered a book that had been out of print for 20 years. Written by an ex-Klan informant, the book contained a confession by Byron De La Beckwith.

"Beckwith was asked to be the featured speaker at a Klan rally on a Pearl River sandbar south of Jackson following his release," said DeLaughter. "It was a recruiting rally-the-troops type of speech. It was like: `Look what I did. I got away with it so nothing's going to happen to you; so let's get in there and kill them all.'"

After tracking down the book's author and enlisting his assistance, DeLaughter said, "We finally had our something new, and from that point on things simply escalated," including several other informants stepping forward.

"Mr. Loudmouth couldn't resist bragging to people he thought would be impressed with his accomplishment. What he hadn't counted on was over the years that these people would have a change of heart, that these people would change, unlike him, and they wanted to set things right."

Setting things right had been uppermost in DeLaughter's mind since Oct. 1, 1989, when he read a Clarion-Ledger article that alluded to jury tampering by the State Sovereignty Commission in Beckwith's first trial. After a subsequent meeting with the slain civil rights worker's widow, the attorney said he became "a man obsessed."

"After talking with Myrlie (Evers) and hearing her recount the tragic events of that night, it was driven home to me that there are some things that not only span races, that not only span people, but span time, as well. It may have been 25 years, but the hurt was still there - the lack of closure, the lack of justice was still there - everything I see with families of homicide victims that we handle was no different in that respect.

"I also considered it a black eye to Mississippi after all those years, and I considered it an opportunity to show that equal justice could be obtained here."

DeLaughter admitted that in the beginning he had nothing - no evidence, no trial transcript, no police report. "But we did announce to the media that we were going to make a good faith effort to investigate whether or not something could be done."

After hearing public reaction run the full spectrum, from asking for the immediate re-arrest of the accused, saying he was not moving fast enough, to those irate that he was moving at all, the district attorney said, "It was extremely hard to stay focused on what we were trying to do, and the easy thing would have been to just leave it alone, because the most frequent thing I was told, and I still hear it today, was `leave it alone; you're just going to open up another wound.'

"But I felt like not only myself but also Mississippi was being put to the test. ...Basically, for me it was put up or shut up time for everything I believed in legally and morally. I just could not let other people determine my priorities."

DeLaughter's presentation included slides of the crime scene and other photos related to the case and clips from the film Ghosts of Mississippi, which is based on the retrial.

A poignant moment in the attorney's presentation came when he showed a slide of the exhumed body of Medgar Evers, perfectly composed after being buried more than 25 years at Arlington National Cemetery. Several members of the audience shed tears, as the speaker seemed to choke back his own emotions.

The exhumation, with permission from the Evers' family, allowed a forensic pathologist's autopsy to establish a cause of death, according to the attorney. It also provided Van Evers, the youngest of the three Evers' children, the opportunity to see his father for the first time in his memory.

DeLaughter recently completed a memoir about his experience in the Beckwith case, tentatively titled Never Too Late, to be published by Scribner. His closing argument in the landmark trial is included in the volume Ladies & Gentlemen of the Jury: Greatest Closing Arguments in Modern Law, edited by Lief, Caldwell & Bycel and published by Scribner in 1998.

Photo
Bobby DeLaughter (left) receives the Law Alumni Public Service Award from Dean Samual M. Davis becoming the first recipient of the award established by the Law School faculty. According to the citation to DeLaughter, the award was given "in recognition of his devotion to the public good as demonstrated by his record of outstanding public service." The attorney recently was sworn in as Hinds County's newest County Court judge, appointed by Gov. Kirk Fordice to fill the unexpired term of the late Judge Chet Henley.