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|  | Statute of Limitations | | Rated:
13+ | | Based on a report by the New York Times... | | by: Writing at Midnight ![View nickfer0413's Portfolio. [Offline / Private]](http://imgs.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/costumicons/ps-icon-regular-10.gif "View nickfer0413's Portfolio. [Offline / Private]") ![Email User: nickfer0413 [Offline / Private]](http://imgs.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/mail-off.gif "Email User: nickfer0413 [Offline / Private]") | Avg Rating:   (4) |
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Created: 4:35pm on 11-04-2009
Modified: 6:45pm on 11-05-2009 | |
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The Crime:
A former Ku Klux Klan member, James F. Seale, brutally murdered two African-American teenagers in 1964, though at the time faced virtually no reprocusions for the crime. For the better part of three decades, he had dropped out of sight. Newspapers reported that he had died at some point. It was nearly by accident that a brother of one of the victims found Mr. Seale while visiting the town of Roxie, Mississippi, in July 2004 with a filmmaker to make a documentary on the killings.
The Results:
In 2000, The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss., took a fresh look at the case. It found documents indicating that the beatings might have occurred in the Homochitto National Forest, giving the Justice Department reason to claim federal jurisdiction.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation had reopened the case in 2000, determining that the best chance for conviction was on a kidnapping charge. Mr. Seale was arrested early in 2007, and convicted that June of kidnapping and conspiracy.
But the law had changed. In 1964, federal kidnapping was an offense punishable by death if the victim was harmed, and as such had no statute of limitations. The Supreme Court overturned that death penalty provision in 1968, and the broader issue of capital punishment itself was in doubt for much of the 1970s. And in 1994, kidnapping that results in the loss of life was once again made punishable by death.
The United States Supreme Court, being asked by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to review the case, declined to intercede over the objections of Justices John Paul Steves and Antonin Scalia.
“But for more than two decades in between, Seale’s crime was not punishable by death,” Justice Stevens noted on Monday, saying that the Supreme Court should have decided whether Mr. Seale’s case was subject to a five-year statute of limitations.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit overturned Mr. Seale’s conviction in September 2008, declaring that the statute of limitations had expired between the crimes and his arrest. But the full circuit deadlocked, 9 to 9, which left standing the original ruling by a federal trial judge that the statute had not expired.
The case now goes back to the Fifth Circuit.
The question I have is, where do you think the statue of limitation stands regarding this case? Does the statute of limitations stand at 5 years, or should he be charged according to the law of the 1964 when the crime was committed?
 Please be respectful in your responses. Only answer based on your perception of the law.
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