JACKSON, Miss. — A reputed Ku Klux Klansman recently acquitted in the abductions of two black teenagers slain in 1964 is a flight risk and should remain in prison while the government considers appealing the ruling, federal prosecutors argued Tuesday.
James Ford Seale, 73, was convicted in June 2007 and sentenced to three life terms on federal kidnapping and conspiracy charges in the abductions of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee. He had spent just over a year in a federal prison in Indiana when, on Sept. 9, his conviction was tossed out by a panel of 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges. The three-judge panel said the statute of limitations had elapsed in the 43 years between the crime and Seale’s arrest. Seale’s attorneys quickly asked for his immediate release.
Prosecutors argued Tuesday in court papers that Seale should remain behind bars while the government reviews the decision and possibly appeals. The government lawyers said Seale’s trial judge correctly observed that he has few ties to the community, lives in a recreational vehicle and knows how to fly an airplane.
One of Seale’s attorneys, federal public defender Kathy Nester, said Tuesday her client has no reason to run. Still, federal prosecutors pointed out that Seale has contacts in other states and was even thought to be dead for years. He was indicted in 2007 after Moore’s brother, Thomas Moore of Colorado Springs, and a documentary filmmaker working on a film about the killings found him in south Mississippi in 2005.
