Lawmen on Trial

There seemed to be nothing very unusual stirring in Biloxi, Miss. The trial down at the courthouse did prompt one high school civics class to look in, but that was routine. What they saw, though, had never been seen before in Biloxi. Filling up the left side of the visitors' gallery were 43 scrubbed and cropped white patrolmen--all defendants in a civil suit. And they were being sued by blacks, specifically by three young students who had been wounded and by the survivors of two other blacks who had been killed in the 1970 shootings at Jackson State College.

Federal and county grand juries had investigated the killings, but no criminal charges were filed against anyone. Ordinarily that would have ended matters. But not for Constance Slaughter, 35, the first black woman to graduate from the University of Mississippi Law School. Out of her determined investigation came the civil suit demanding $13.8 million from Mississippi, the city of Jackson and the 43 city police and highway patrolmen for wrongful deaths and injuries.

To show that there had been indiscriminate gunfire, Connie Slaughter and other attorneys from the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law established in court that at least 200 shots were fired during the 29-second barrage. All 43 lawmen admitted that they had fired; only three claimed to have seen any sign of the third-floor sniper who supposedly prompted the fusillade. But although the dead and most of the wounded were on the ground, none of the patrolmen would admit having aimed below the third floor of the dormitory.

At the defense table, the five paunchy middle-aged lawyers remained quietly confident that once all the evidence was out of the way, the all-white jury would do its duty. They pointedly mentioned that one of the dead blacks "was so drunk that night that he was practically stupefied." And the other was shot "over there between the bushes and the dining hall"; the tone suggested the danger of any black man being in the bushes. In any case, the defense maintained, the shootings had been provoked by "agitators." "Were these agitators bent and determined on violence?" asked Rufus Creek more. "Well, I think they were."

The defense's confidence faltered as the jurors deliberated for 17 hours over three days. But finally last week they did indeed return the expected verdict, clearing the authorities. The pressure off at last, the patrolmen gathered on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, where some jumped up and down and whooped their delight. Inside, the mother of one of the slain blacks cried hysterically at the verdict. The young widow of the other victim silently returned to her motel room.

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