After Killen was convicted on June 21, his attorneys announced they would appeal the conviction and seek an appeal bond for the Klansman's release. On June 25, Jerry Mitchell published an article in the Clarion Ledger, reporting on the analysis of Aaron Condon, professor emeritus at the University of Mississippi School of Law.
"It's pretty much up to the judge," said Aaron Condon . . .
"It's one of those lengthy statutes full of sound and fury and signifying nothing," Condon said.
If Gordon does grant an appeal bond, it would mark the first given in a prosecution since 1994 involving killings from the civil rights era.
Murder convictions have resulted in most of those cases, making those defendants ineligible since they were sentenced to life.
In a 1999 trial involving the 1970 killing of Rainey Pool, a one-armed sharecropper beaten by a white mob and thrown in the river, a jury convicted three men of manslaughter, and a fourth pleaded guilty to the charge. Circuit Judge Jannie Lewis denied appeal bonds in that case.
If Killen had been convicted of murder, he would not be eligible for an appeal bond. In fact, according to Professor Condon,
Because Gordon sentenced Killen . . . to the maximum 60 years . . . the judge may treat Killen's case as if it were a murder conviction.
Under state law, appeal bonds are denied to those sentenced to death or life, or to those convicted of felony child abuse.
Another reason why Judge Gordon didn't have to allow the appeal bond and another reason to be enraged that AG Hood and DA Duncan did not do their jobs as prosecutors.
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