JURIST - Paper Chase: Alabama appeals court upholds conviction for 1963 KKK bombing

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals Friday unanimously upheld the 2002 murder convictions and life sentences imposed on Bobby Frank Cherry. Cherry, an ex-member of the Ku Klux Klan, was indicted in 2000, 37 years after a 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four African-American girls, ages 11-14. Read about the bombing here.

Cherry argued before the court that his case was prejudiced by the long delay and by its extensive media coverage due to the trial's location in Birmingham, a center of civil rights history. Judge Sue Bell Cobb, who authored the 5-0 decision, wrote, "There is no proof in the record before us that the State intentionally caused the pre-indictment delay." As to the other claims, the court stated that the media coverage was "factual, objective and non-sensational." According to his family, Cherry's health is failing in prison. He will be 74 years old this year. AP has more.

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