Trial for 1964 murder of civil rights workers to start Monday News
Trial for 1964 murder of civil rights workers to start Monday

[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.

THIS DAY @ LAW

South Africa becomes first country on continent to legalize same-sex marriage

Same-sex marriages became legal in South Africa on November 30, 2006 as the country's Civil Union Act, 2006 went into effect, making South Africa the only country on the African continent to legalize same-sex marriage. Read the Civil Union Act, 2006.