Backers seek expansion of civil rights death law

[Omaha Steve]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140921/us--civil_rights_deaths-investigations-b815eb125f.html

By JAY REEVES

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — There has only been one prosecution under the Emmett Till Act, even though the law was passed with the promise of $135 million for police work and an army of federal agents to investigate unsolved killings from the civil rights era. Some deaths aren't even under review because of a quirk in the law.

Still, proponents are laying the groundwork to extend and expand the act in hopes it's not too late for some families to get justice.



ADVANCE FOR SUNDAY SEPT. 21 This photo taken July 30, 2014, shows sisters Mattie Hull, left, and Gloria Green-McCray looking at a memorial to their late brother, James Earl Green, at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss. The teenager was fatally shot by law enforcement during a campus protest in 1970, and they would like his death to being investigated under the Emmett Till Act if the law is expanded someday to allow reviews of deaths that happened after 1969. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

In nearly six years since the signing of the law, named for a black Chicago teenager killed after flirting with a white woman in Mississippi in 1955, only one person has been prosecuted: A former Alabama trooper who pleaded guilty in 2010 to killing a black protester in 1965.

The government has closed the books on all but 20 of the 126 deaths it investigated under the law, finding many were too old to prosecute because suspects and witnesses had died and memories had faded. And Congress hasn't appropriated millions of dollars in grant money that was meant to help states fund their own investigations.

FULL story at link.