Cold case ... James Seale is escorted to a Mississippicourtroom in 2007 where he was convicted of taking part in the kidnapping and murder of two black teens in 1964
Reputed KKK member has life terms overturned
Judges rule teen drownings too long ago to prosecute
1964 case picked up again in 2007
A REPUTED KKK member in his 70s has had his three life terms overturned in the case of two black teenagers drowned in Mississippi in the 1960s.
James Ford Seale, a former sheriff`s deputy, was convicted in June 2007 of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping in the disappearances of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, both 19 in 1964.
Yesterday a three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit Court Appeals agreed with Mr Seale`s claim that the five-year statute of limitations on kidnap offences had expired and he should never have been charged, CNN reported today.
The more than 40-year delay clearly exceeded the limitations period," Judge Harold DeVoss wrote in the panel`s ruling.
"While we are mindful of the seriousness of the crimes at issue, we cannot abdicate our duty to faithfully apply a valid limitations period."
Mr Seale, now a frail man in his 70s, was not tried for murder, but prosecutors alleged he and fellow Klansmen conspired to abduct, beat and murder Dee and Moore in May, 1964.
He and his cohorts were accused of picking up the two hitchhikers and driving them into the Homochito National Forest in Franklin County, Mississippi, where they were beaten and interrogated at gunpoint.
Dee and Moore were then bound, weighted down by an engine block and railroad rail, and were still alive when they were thrown into the Old Mississippi River, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Their decomposed bodies were found two months later during a search for three missing civil rights workers that would later be known as the Mississippi Burning case.
Mr Seale and another man arrested in the slayings in 1964 but released on bond and never tried.
The case was dropped after a justice of the peace said witnesses had refused to testify.
But the cold case was picked back up by the FBI in 2007 when Moore`s brother discovered Mr Seale was still alive.
Mr Seale was the first and only person convicted in the Moore and Dee murders.
Cold case ... James Seale is escorted to a Mississippicourtroom in 2007 where he was convicted of taking part in the kidnapping and murder of two black teens in 1964
