News[JURIST] An 80-year-old man reputed to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan will stand trial [JURIST report] starting Monday for the 1964 murder [UMKC backgrounder] of three civil rights workers. Edgar Ray Killen [UMKC profile] is charged with murdering three men who came to Mississippi to help blacks register to vote. The killings were the focus of the 1988 movie Mississippi Burning [Internet Movie Database entry]. A federal trial in 1967 resulted in a hung jury. Seven others involved in the murders were convicted of civil rights violations; none of the seven served more than six years in prison. AP has more.
