Michael Schwerner - James Chaney - Andrew Goodman

The Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice (Division) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), assisted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi (USAO), have completed their investigation into the June 21, 1964 murders of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, three volunteers in the civil rights movement working in Neshoba and Lauderdale Counties, Mississippi.  Nine individuals have been successfully prosecuted for these heinous crimes.  In the 1967 case of United States v. Price (Price), the Department’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights John Doar and his team of federal prosecutors convicted eight defendants – James Edward Jordan, Cecil Ray Price, Alton Wayne Roberts, Horace Doyle “H.D.” Barnette, Billy Wayne Posey, Jimmy Arledge, Jimmy Snowden, and Sam Holloway Bowers – for violating the federal criminal civil rights conspiracy statute.  In 2005, Mississippi Attorney General Hood and Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan convicted Edgar Ray Killen of state manslaughter charges in Mississippi v. Killen (Killen).