Abstract:
In the longest criminal civil-rights trial in U.S. history, nine Klan-Nazi defendants were acquitted on charges stemming from the 1979 anti-Klan rally in Greensboro. There are four contributing factors that led to the not-guilty verdicts including a conservative interpretation of the federal civil-rights statues, the defense casted the victims as revolutionaries, jury selection did not reflect a cross-section of the community, and defense and prosecution contrasted in experience and style.