Published: November 25, 2008 10:41 pm      

Seale arguments set for week of May 18

JACKSON (AP) — Attorneys for reputed Ku Klux Klansman James Ford Seale will argue for his freedom from a conviction related to a civil rights era case at hearing during the week of May 18 before a federal appeals court.

The 73-year-old Seale was convicted in 2007 in the abductions of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee. The decomposed bodies of the two 19-year-old friends were pulled from a Mississippi River backwater in 1964.

Seale was serving three life sentences when the convictions were overturned in September. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the statute of limitations had elapsed and acquitted Seale of the decades-old crime.

Federal prosecutors quickly asked for a review by the full New Orleans court, which was granted on Nov. 14.