Church Bombing Defense Rests

B I R M I N G H A M, Ala., April 30, 2001 -- Testimony ended today in the murdertrial of a former Ku Klux Klansman after the defense tried todiscredit witnesses linking him to a church bombing that killedfour black girls in 1963.

Thomas Blanton Jr., who contends he had nothing to do with theblast, did not testify.

"I didn't think he needed to," said defense lawyer JohnRobbins, who called only two witnesses compared to nearly two dozenfor the prosecution.

Jury deliberations will begin Tuesday after closing argumentsand instructions from Circuit Judge James Garrett, who denied adefense request today to dismiss the case.

Disputable Evidence

In refusing to halt the trial, Garrett rejected Robbins' claimsthat prosecutors had failed to present anything tying Blanton tothe explosion at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963.

Robbins criticized government witnesses and secretly recordedtapes from the mid-1960s as ineffective in proving anything.

"There is no evidence that my client placed the bomb there,"said Robbins.

But Garrett ruled that prosecutors over the course of a weekpresented enough evidence "to make it a jury question."

Blanton, 62, is charged in the deaths of Denise McNair, 11, and14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and CaroleRobertson. The bombing, on a Sunday morning, was the deadliestsingle act against the civil rights movement.

Blanton, who has shown little emotion during the trial, heldhands with his daughter Lisa and hugged her during a break intestimony. She later quoted scripture to reporters.

"I just try to keep my mind on the word," said the woman, whodeclined to give her last name.

Taped Words Out of Context?

Prosecutors claimed Blanton was part of a group of Klansmen thattargeted Sixteenth Street Baptist because the big brick church indowntown Birmingham was a gathering point for youthfuldemonstrators during weeks of civil rights protests.

The state's main evidence against Blanton came on a series ofsecretly recorded tapes in which he discussed going to a meeting toplan the bomb. On another tape, Blanton claimed he wouldn't becaught when he blew up "my next church."

Robbins said Blanton's words were taken out of context and thatthe tapes were too fuzzy to determine exactly what was being said.

The government's entire case was built on evidence which wasgathered in the mid-'60s but had never been presented to jurors.

Part of the reason for the delay was the FBI's reluctance toshare information with state investigators and the BirminghamPolice Department, which was infiltrated by Klansmen in the '60s.

Mistaken Identity Argument

With FBI agent Bill Fleming on the stand, Robbins tried to showthat government witness James Lay could have mistakenly believedthat Blanton was one of two men he saw outside the church two weeksbefore the bombing.

Robbins showed photos of two other arch-segregationists at thetime, including J.B. Stoner, who was convicted in a non-fatalbombing at another church. With dark hair and a medium build,Robbins brought out that Blanton was similar in appearance to otherwhite supremacists, including Stoner.

Fleming conceded that Lay did not identify Blanton as "closelyresembling" a man he saw outside the church until his sixthinterview by the FBI.

Robbins said that in the first five interviews Lay toldinvestigators he could not identify the two men, who were near astaircase where the deadly bomb was later planted.

Another defense witness, retired chef Eddie Mauldin, testifiedhe saw a Rambler station wagon adorned with Confederate flags driveslowly by the church and speed up right before the blast.

Another Former Klansman Awaits Trial

Robbins intended the testimony by Mauldin, who is black, toraise questions in the minds of jurors. Its effect was uncertainsince the jury never heard that Blanton drove another kind of car,a Chevrolet.

A woman who in an earlier trial identified a car like Blanton'sas being at the church the night before the explosion has sincedied.

Blanton is the second former Klan member put on trial in thebombing. Robert "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss was convicted of murderin 1977 and died in prison.

Grand jurors last year indicted another former Klansman, BobbyFrank Cherry, with Blanton. The judge delayed Cherry's trial afterevaluations raised questions about his mental competency.