Sept. 4, 1964 - An all-white jury in Danielsville, Ga., took three hours today to find two Ku Klux Klansmen innocent of the nightrider killing of a prominent Negro educator from Washington D.C.
There was scattered applause in the crowded courtroom and the Klansmen’s wives sobbed for joy as their friends crowded around them. Despite their acquittal, Joseph Howard Sims, 41, and Cecil William Myers, 25, are still not free of charges connected with the July 11 slaying of 48-year-old Lemuel Penn. Federal charges, still pending, accuse them of violating Penn’s civil rights by killing him with two shotgun blasts on a lonely highway.
Penn, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and director of adult education for the Washington schools, was killed as he and two companions drove along a rural north Georgia road, en route home from Fort Benning, Ga., where they had undergone summer reserve training.
Prosecutor Clete Johnson, who had passionately demanded the death penalty for Sims and Myers, shook hands with them and congratulated them.
“No hard feelings,” Sim said.
“There’s nothing personal in this,” replied Johnson, gripping the Klansman’s hand.
“I know it, or I wouldn’t be doing this,” said Sims with a smile.
Sims said the jury’s decision was the only verdict “they could bring and be fair.”
“When God is on your side, man can’t harm you,” said Sims’ sister.
Asked if he would continue to be active in the Klan, Sims said: “I couldn’t tell you that even if I knew.”
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