Editing Medgar Evers (section)

===Trials===
On June 21, 1963, [[Byron De La Beckwith]], a fertilizer salesman and member of the Citizens' Council (and later of the Ku Klux Klan), was arrested for Evers' murder.<ref name="ajr">{{cite journal|first=Marcel|last=Dufresne|url=http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=1311|title=Exposing the Secrets of Mississippi Racism|journal=[[American Journalism Review]]|publisher=[[Philip Merrill College of Journalism]]|location=College Park, Maryland|date=October 1991|access-date=January 22, 2019|archive-date=October 26, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131026160919/http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=1311|url-status=live}}</ref> District Attorney and future governor [[Bill Waller]] prosecuted De La Beckwith.<ref>{{cite news|first=Jerry|last=Mitchell|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/06/02/medgar-evers-family-legacy/2378631/|title=Medgar Evers: Assassin's gun forever changed a family|newspaper=[[USA Today]]|location=Mclean, Virginia|date=June 2, 2013|access-date=January 22, 2019|archive-date=September 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170920190605/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/06/02/medgar-evers-family-legacy/2378631/|url-status=live}}</ref> [[All-white juries]] in February and April 1964<ref>{{cite news |title=White Supremacist Indicted for Third Time in Shooting Death of Medgar Evers |magazine=[[Jet (magazine)|Jet]] |volume=79|issue=12 |date=January 7, 1991 }}</ref> [[hung jury|deadlocked]] on De La Beckwith's guilt and failed to reach a verdict. At the time, most black people were still [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] by Mississippi's constitution and voter registration practices; this meant they were also excluded from juries, which were drawn from the pool of registered voters.

Myrlie Evers did not give up the fight for the conviction of her husband's killer. She waited until a new judge had been assigned in the county to take her case against De La Beckwith back into the courtroom.<ref name=":0" /> In 1994, De La Beckwith was prosecuted by the state based on new evidence. [[Bobby DeLaughter]] was the prosecutor. During the trial, the body of Evers was exhumed for an autopsy.<ref name="Baden, 2006">{{cite book|first=M. M.|last=Baden|chapter=Time of Death and Changes after Death. Part 4: Exhumation|title=Spitz and Fisher's Medicolegal Investigation of Death. Guideline for the Application of Pathology to Crime Investigations|editor1-first=W.U.|editor1-last=Spitz|editor2-first=D.J.|editor2-last=Spitz|edition=4th|publisher=Charles C. Thomas|location=Springfield, Illinois|date=2006|isbn=978-0398075446|pages=174–83}}</ref> His body was embalmed, and was in such good condition that his son was allowed to view his father's remains for the first time in 30 years.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.livescience.com/how-long-bodies-take-to-decompose|title=How long does it take for a body to decompose?|first=David|last=Volkpublished|date=January 2, 2023|website=livescience.com}}</ref>

De La Beckwith was convicted of murder on February 5, 1994 and sentenced to life in prison, having lived as a free man for much of the three decades following the killing. He had been imprisoned from 1977 to 1980 for conspiring to murder [[Adolph Botnick|A. I. Botnick]]. In 1997, De La Beckwith appealed his conviction in the Evers case but the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld it and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear it.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Batten|first1=Donna|title=Gale Encyclopedia of American Law|date=2010|page=266|edition=3rd}}</ref> He died at the age of 80 in prison on January 21, 2001.<ref>"Deliverance." ''People Weekly'' February 21, 1994: 60. ''ProQuest''. Web. May 27, 2017</ref><ref>"Unfinished Business". ''U.S. News & World Report'' January 24, 1994: 14. ''ProQuest'' Web. May 27, 2017</ref>