Bobby DeLaughter

Last updated

Robert Burt DeLaughter Sr. (born February 28, 1954, in Vicksburg, Mississippi) is a former state prosecutor and then Hinds County Circuit Judge. He prosecuted and secured the conviction in 1994 of Byron De La Beckwith, charged with the murder of the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. Two earlier trials in Mississippi in 1964 had resulted in hung juries. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Bobby Burt DeLaughter was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on February 28, 1954. He was the first son of Barney Roy DeLaughter and Billie Newman (Burt) DeLaughter, who later had another son Mike. Bobby's father was a commercial artist for a newspaper. The family moved to Jackson when Bobby was very young, and DeLaughter grew up being part of the city's white middle class. He was nine on June 12, 1963, when Medgar Evers was killed.

DeLaughter first saw the law in action when his ninth-grade civics teacher took the class to watch a trial at the Hinds County courthouse. That day convinced DeLaughter he wanted to practice law. He graduated from Wingfield High School in Jackson. DeLaughter attended undergraduate college and law school at the University of Mississippi. He became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.

Marriage and family

During the summer of 1973, DeLaughter met Dixie Claire Townsend. [2] They married on November 16, 1973, and their first child, Bobby Burt, was born on December 5, 1978. They also had a daughter, Claire, and a second son, Drew, together.

Due to their opposing views and his commitment on the Evers case, which Bobby started investigating in 1989 for a new trial, his and Dixie's marriage was strained. They divorced on April 15, 1991, and DeLaughter gained custody of their three children.

Later DeLaughter met Peggy Lloyd, a nurse, whom he married. Also divorced, she had three sons from her first marriage: Jared, Joel, and JJ.

Career

Before graduating from law school in 1977, DeLaughter was given the opportunity to work on legal research for Alvin Binder. DeLaughter's father-in-law, Russell Moore, who was serving as a judge at the time, recommended him for the position.

In 1977 DeLaughter was admitted to the Mississippi Bar Association. DeLaughter worked as a criminal and civil defense lawyer for nearly ten years. In 1983 he had formed a firm, Kirksey & DeLaughter, with his colleague Bill Kirksey. By 1986, he wanted to leave private practice and sought a position as a prosecuting attorney.

In 1987, DeLaughter began working as a prosecutor under Ed Peters, the district attorney of Hinds County. He was assigned to the Evers case, which he began investigating in 1989. His strong commitment to the case contributed to the break-up of his marriage.

DeLaughter is best known for leading the state's successful prosecution of Byron De La Beckwith for the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1994, more than 30 years after the crime. Two previous trials in 1964 following the event had resulted in hung juries; at the time, all the jury members were white because blacks had been prevented from voting in Mississippi and thus could not serve on juries. The state retried the case in 1994 based on new evidence.

In 1999, Governor Kirk Fordice appointed DeLaughter to a position as Hinds County Court Judge, after the incumbent judge died. In 2002, DeLaughter was appointed a Circuit Court judge for Hinds County.

Bribery charges

On March 28, 2008, DeLaughter was suspended from the bench indefinitely by the Mississippi Supreme Court due to allegations of bribery and judicial misconduct. [3] On February 12, 2009, DeLaughter pleaded not guilty to a five-count federal indictment; these charges were linked to the criminal investigation of disgraced tort attorney Richard Scruggs. [4] On July 30, 2009, he pleaded guilty to one obstruction of justice charge. [5] On November 13, 2009, DeLaughter was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison by Judge Glen Davidson. [6] In keeping with the recommendation of his plea agreement, Judge Davidson did not impose a financial penalty on DeLaughter due to his negative net worth. He was incarcerated in the federal prison at McCreary [7] and was released on April 13, 2011. [8]

Representation in other media

In 1996, the events surrounding the De La Beckwith trial were memorialized in the Rob Reiner film Ghosts of Mississippi . Alec Baldwin portrayed DeLaughter in the film. In 2001, DeLaughter published his book about the Evers prosecution, titled Never Too Late: A Prosecutor’s Story of Justice in the Medgar Evers Trial. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackson, Mississippi</span> Capital of Mississippi, United States

Jackson is the capital of and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. Along with Raymond, Jackson is one of two county seats for Hinds County. The city had a population of 153,701 at the 2020 census, a significant decline from 173,514, or 11.42%, since the 2010 census, representing the largest decline in population during the decade of any major U.S. city. Jackson is the anchor for the Jackson metropolitan statistical area, the largest metropolitan area located entirely in the state and the tenth-largest urban area in the Deep South. With a 2020 population of nearly 600,000, metropolitan Jackson is home to over one-fifth of Mississippi's population. The city sits on the Pearl River and is located in the greater Jackson Prairie region of Mississippi. Jackson is the only city in Mississippi with a population exceeding 100,000 people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medgar Evers</span> American civil rights activist and soldier (1925–1963)

Medgar Wiley Evers was an American civil rights activist and soldier who was the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi. Evers, a United States Army veteran who served in World War II, was engaged in efforts to overturn racial segregation at the University of Mississippi, end the segregation of public facilities, and expand opportunities for African Americans, including the enforcement of voting rights when he was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ross Barnett</span> 53rd Governor of Mississippi

Ross Robert Barnett was an American politician and segregationist who served as the 53rd governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. He was a Southern Democrat who supported racial segregation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Byron De La Beckwith</span> American white supremacist, Klansman, and convicted murderer

Byron De La Beckwith Jr. was an American white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan who murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963 in Jackson, Mississippi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles W. Pickering</span> American judge (born 1937)

Charles Willis Pickering Sr. is an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi and, briefly, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prosecutor</span> Legal profession

A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in civil law. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against the defendant, an individual accused of breaking the law. Typically, the prosecutor represents the state or the government in the case brought against the accused person.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citizens' Councils</span> American segregationist organizations

The Citizens' Councils were an associated network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South and created as part of a white backlash against the US Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The first was formed on July 11, 1954. The name was changed to the Citizens' Councils of America in 1956. With about 60,000 members across the Southern United States, the groups were founded primarily to oppose racial integration of public schools: the logical conclusion of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Waller</span> American politician (1926–2011)

William Lowe Waller Sr. was an American politician and attorney. A Democrat, Waller served as the 56th governor of Mississippi from 1972 to 1976. Born near Oxford, Mississippi to a farming family, Waller went to law school and in 1950 established a law practice in Jackson. Nine years later, he was elected District Attorney of Hinds County, Mississippi. Waller attempted to reform the position and provoked the ire of local law enforcement for aggressively prosecuting several cases. In 1964, he twice prosecuted Byron De La Beckwith for the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, with both trials resulting in deadlocked juries. In 1967, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for governor, finishing fifth in the Democratic primary.

<i>Ghosts of Mississippi</i> 1996 film by Rob Reiner

Ghosts of Mississippi is a 1996 American biographical courtroom drama film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, and James Woods. The film is based on the 1994 trial of Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist accused of the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edgar Ray Killen</span> Ku Klux Klan organizer convicted of manslaughter (1925–2018)

Edgar Ray Killen was an American Ku Klux Klan organizer who planned and directed the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, three civil rights activists participating in the Freedom Summer of 1964. He was found guilty in state court of three counts of manslaughter on June 21, 2005, the forty-first anniversary of the crime, and sentenced to 60 years in prison. He appealed the verdict, but the sentence was upheld on April 12, 2007, by the Supreme Court of Mississippi. He died in prison on January 11, 2018, at age 92.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Holt</span> American politician

Joseph Holt was an American lawyer, soldier, and politician. As a leading member of the Buchanan administration, he succeeded in convincing Buchanan to oppose the secession of the South. He returned to Kentucky and successfully battled the secessionist element thereby helping to keep Kentucky in the Union. President Abraham Lincoln appointed him the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army. He served as Lincoln's chief arbiter and enforcer of military law, and supporter of emancipation. His most famous roles came in the Lincoln assassination trials.

Mack Charles Parker was a Black American victim of lynching in the United States. He had been accused of raping a pregnant white woman in northern Pearl River County, Mississippi. Three days before he was to stand trial, Parker was kidnapped from his jail cell in the Pearl River County Courthouse by a mob, beaten and shot. His body was found in the Pearl River, 20 miles west of Poplarville, 10 days later. Following an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the men who killed him were released. Despite confessions, no one was ever indicted for the killing. Historian Howard Smead called the killing the "last classic lynching in America."

William LaFortune is an American politician who served as the 37th Mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma from 2002 to 2006 and is currently a district judge in Tulsa County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Moore (American politician)</span> American attorney and politician

Michael Cameron Moore is an American attorney and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the Attorney General of Mississippi from 1988 to 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Myrlie Evers-Williams</span> American civil rights activist

Myrlie Louise Evers-Williams is an American civil rights activist and journalist who worked for over three decades to seek justice for the 1963 murder of her husband Medgar Evers, another civil rights activist. She also served as chairwoman of the NAACP, and published several books on topics related to civil rights and her husband's legacy. On January 21, 2013, she delivered the invocation at the second inauguration of Barack Obama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert J. Conrad</span> American judge (born 1958)

Robert James "Bob" Conrad Jr. is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. He served as chief judge from 2006 to 2013 and was a former nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to take the place of the retired James Dickson Phillips Jr. He previously served as a member of the executive committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 2016 to 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Yagman</span> American lawyer

Stephen Yagman is an American federal civil rights lawyer, who also handles criminal defense and habeas corpus matters. He has a reputation for being an exceptionally zealous advocate in cases regarding allegations of police brutality. He has argued hundreds of federal civil rights cases before a jury, and has been involved in over a hundred and fifty federal appeals and certiorari petitions before the United States Supreme Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. H. Hurst</span> American politician

Eugene Hunter Hurst Jr. was an American, dairy farmer, politician, and murderer from Amite County, Mississippi. Elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives for a single term in 1959, Hurst supported segregation and opposed the civil rights movement, which had expanded into Amite County by the early 1960s.

"Sweet, Sweet Blues" is an episode of the NBC drama series In the Heat of the Night, starring Carroll O'Connor as Chief Bill Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Detective Virgil Tibbs. In the Heat of the Night was based on the 1965 novel by John Ball, which was also the basis for the Academy Award winning film of the same name starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, directed by Norman Jewison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument</span> Historic house in Mississippi, United States

The Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, also known as Medgar Evers House, is a historic house museum at 2332 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive within the Medgar Evers Historic District in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. Built in 1956, it was the home of African American civil rights activist Medgar Evers (1925–1963) at the time of his assassination. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2017. The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, signed March 12, 2019, by President Donald Trump, authorized it as a national monument; it was established on December 10, 2020, after the National Park Service (NPS) acquired it from Tougaloo College.

References

  1. 1 2 Erin D’Abramo (2008) [2002]. "Biography of Bobby B. DeLaughter". Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project, by Starkville High School. Archived from the original on 2011-10-04. Retrieved 2007-09-29.
  2. ↑ "Bobby DeLaughter, A Mississippi writer from Jackson, judge and prosecuter in Beckwith trial for the murder of Medgar Evers".
  3. ↑ "Suspension of Bobby B. DeLaughter". The San Francisco Chronicle. 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-04-04. Retrieved 2008-07-21.
  4. ↑ "NEWS Briefs May 20, 2009 - Daily Journal". 20 May 2009.
  5. ↑ Mississippi: "Judge Enters Plea" New York Times, July 30, 2009
  6. ↑ Wayne Drash, CNN (January 4, 2010). "Civil rights hero caught in corruption probe to begin serving sentence". cnn.com.{{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  7. ↑ "Inmate Locator".[ permanent dead link ]
  8. ↑ "Yall Politics - Bobby DeLaughter released from prison". 14 April 2011.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.