Fit to be executed

mattd mattd at useoz.com
Fri Jan 4 04:57:20 PST 2002


BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - A former Ku Klux Klansman who state psychologists 
testified was faking mental problems has been ruled competent to stand 
trial for the murder of four black girls killed in a 1963 church bombing.
Circuit Judge James Garrett handed down the decision Thursday, reversing 
his own ruling last year that Bobby Frank Cherry was mentally incompetent.
In a two-sentence order, Garrett said the retired trucker "has been 
restored to competency." The judge, without any detailed explanation, said 
his finding was based on legal briefs and on a recent hearing, at which 
psychologists testified about Cherry's mental condition.
Garrett scheduled a Jan. 18 proceeding to set a trial date.
Sarah Collins Rudolph, who was standing a short distance from one of the 
victims when the blast occurred, said she was pleased Cherry is going to 
trial.
"It's his time to stand trial now," she said. "I hope it's finally coming 
to an end."
Cherry's attorneys, Mickey Johnson and Rodger Bass, did not immediately 
return phone messages seeking comment.
"We believed all along that he was competent," said Doug Jones, a former 
U.S. attorney who has served as chief prosecutor in the case. "We believe 
that ruling was the only ruling (the judge) could make under the law."
The church, a rallying site for advocates of public school desegregation, 
was bombed on Sept. 15, 1963, as the four girls prepared for a youth day 
service.
The explosion was the deadliest attack targeting the civil rights movement. 
Killed in the attack were 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley 
and Carole Robertson and 11-year-old Denise McNair.
Two other former Klansmen were convicted of murder in the blast, one last 
year and one in 1977.
Cherry was one of a group of Klansmen who came under almost immediate 
suspicion. He left Alabama several years after the bombing and moved to 
Texas, where he worked as a truck driver and cleaned carpets before 
retiring in the town of Mabank.
Cherry was indicted on murder charges in 1999. Garrett delayed Cherry's 
trial because of competency questions.
Garrett ruled in April that Cherry, whose age is listed as both 71 and 72 
in court records, was incompetent based on testimony of four mental health 
experts. They said he suffered varying degrees of vascular dementia, which 
can cause forgetfulness and confusion.
Prosecutors appealed and Garrett committed Cherry to a state-run 
psychiatric hospital to be evaluated for 71 days.
Psychologists testified during a two-day hearing last month that Cherry was 
faking mental problems and possibly taking too much of a medicine 
prescribed for anxiety.
The Rev. Abraham Woods, who led demonstrations against Garrett's original 
ruling, said he thought Cherry misled attorneys from the beginning.
"Cherry was faking, and after he spent 71 days and nights at Taylor Hardin 
(psychiatric hospital), those professionals affirmed he was faking," he said.
Another ex-Klansman, Robert "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss, was convicted of 
murder in the bombing in 1977 and died in prison. Thomas Blanton Jr. was 
convicted in the bombing last year and sentenced to life in prison, and a 
fourth suspect, Herman Cash, died in 1994 without being charged.
Blanton, who continues to maintain his innocence, is appealing his conviction.





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