The conviction of 80-year-old Edgar Ray Killen for his part in the murders, forty-one years ago, of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner reminds me of a story told in the Ken Burns documentary, Baseball. The first Commissioner of Baseball was a former federal judge named Kenesaw Mountain Landis:
As a judge, he had once sentenced an aging bank robber to fifteen years in jail.
“Your honor,” the man said, “I’m 72 years old. I can’t serve that long.”
Landis replied, “Well, do the best you can.”
Justice may sleep, and sleep for a long time, but it still lives.
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