[1][2][3] After an investigation, James Ford Seale and another man, allegedly members of the Ku Klux Klan, were indicted for the murder.
[5] Nevertheless, the House Committee on Un-American Activities called Seale to testify and placed its belief that he had committed the crime in its records.
Although kidnapping was a capital offense in 1964, Congress detached the death penalty from it in the mid-1970s in response to United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570 (1968), and Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972).
This should be given retroactive effect, Seale contended, making his offense subject to section 3282's five year limit, and the indictment accordingly untimely.
It embraced Seale's argument that the prosecution was time-barred; because that decision terminated the case, the panel did not address the remaining issues.
In a statement respecting the dismissal joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote: This certificate presents us with a pure question of law that may well determine the outcome of a number of cases of ugly racial violence remaining from the 1960s ... [and which is] narrow, debatable, and important.
In these unusual circumstances, certification can serve the interests not only of legal clarity but also of prosecutorial economy and the proper administration and expedition of judicial business.
[13]The case will now return to the District Court for consideration of the residuum of issues, per the Fifth Circuit's original en banc decision.