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Ala. Court Upholds Conviction in Bombing
October 1, 2004, 7:16 PM EDT
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- An Alabama appeals court Friday unanimously upheld ex-Ku Klux Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry's murder conviction and life sentences for a 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls in Birmingham.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Cherry's argument that the 37-year delay between the crime and his indictment in 2000 was unfair.
"There is no proof in the record before us that the state inte
tionally caused the pre-indictment delay," Judge Sue Bell Cobb wrote in the 5-0 decision.
Cherry, 74, was convicted in May 2002 and is serving four consecutive life sentences. He has maintained tha
t he is innocent and that he is "a political prisoner in Alabama."
A powerfu
l bomb went off at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963, as Birmingham's public schools were being racially integrated. The blast killed four girls inside the stone-and-brick church, which was a gathering spot for demonstrators seeking an end to segregation.
The bombing -- one of the bloodiest crimes of the civil rights era -- galvanized the movement to end Jim Crow.
Cherry's daughter, Karen Sunderland, said his health is failing in prison.
"He's lost 70 or 80 pounds since he went in," Sunderland said in a telephone interview from Texas, where she lives. "He's in real bad shape."
The Corrections Department has said Cherry was being
treated for diabetes. <span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>
Copyright
October 1, 2004, 7:16 PM EDT
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- An Alabama appeals court Friday unanimously upheld ex-Ku Klux Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry's murder conviction and life sentences for a 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls in Birmingham.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Cherry's argument that the 37-year delay between the crime and his indictment in 2000 was unfair.
"There is no proof in the record before us that the state inte
tionally caused the pre-indictment delay," Judge Sue Bell Cobb wrote in the 5-0 decision.
Cherry, 74, was convicted in May 2002 and is serving four consecutive life sentences. He has maintained tha
t he is innocent and that he is "a political prisoner in Alabama."
A powerfu
l bomb went off at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963, as Birmingham's public schools were being racially integrated. The blast killed four girls inside the stone-and-brick church, which was a gathering spot for demonstrators seeking an end to segregation.
The bombing -- one of the bloodiest crimes of the civil rights era -- galvanized the movement to end Jim Crow.
Cherry's daughter, Karen Sunderland, said his health is failing in prison.
"He's lost 70 or 80 pounds since he went in," Sunderland said in a telephone interview from Texas, where she lives. "He's in real bad shape."
The Corrections Department has said Cherry was being
treated for diabetes. <span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>
Copyright