Ex-Klansman finally convicted for 1963 church-bomb deaths
The attack — and the fact that the chief suspect never had been brought to trial — became an unwanted symbol of this once-segregated city ruled by George Wallace and Bull Connor. Many people, black and white, wept quietly in the crowded courtroom when the verdict was read.
Cherry, 71, an ex-Marine trained in demolition, stood with hands in the pockets of his gray suit when the jury of nine whites and three blacks filed into Circuit Judge James Garrett's chambers after six hours of deliberation. To each of the four counts, the foreman said, "We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of first-degree murder."
Cherry showed not a flicker of emotion.
Asked if he had anything to say, the retired truck driver replied: "Yes, your honor. This whole bunch (of witnesses) lied all the way through this thing. I told the truth. I don't know why I'm going to jail for nothing."
He held out his hands, a bailiff handcuffed them and Cherry, who had been free on bond, was led into the adjoining jail, ending one of the last major trials from the 1960s civil-rights era.
Although a prime suspect from day one, Cherry seemed destined to remain free until investigators reopened the case in 1995, after five of Cherry's estranged relatives and former friends told of hearing him brag about the bombing. His granddaughter said he had boasted of "blowing up a bunch of (expletives) back in Birmingham." Cherry was indicted in 2000, but his trial was delayed more than a year because of questions about his mental competence.
Cherry's attorney argued that prosecutors had built their case on unreliable witnesses, sketchy memories and emotionalism, and had proved only that his client was a racist, which he said was true of "hundreds, if not thousands" of white Alabamans in the 1960s. So many black neighborhoods were bombed at the time that the city was known as "Bombingham."
"The people of the state of Alabama proved for the second time in about a year that justice delayed does not have to be justice denied," said prosecutor Doug Jones, who also won a conviction last year against former Klansman Thomas Blanton after the case had been dormant for almost 25 years.
On the steps of the Jefferson County courthouse yesterday, two middle-aged black men hugged. "Hey, soldier," said the first, using the term that veterans of the civil-rights marches still use for each other, "after so many years. ... " And the second finished the sentence for him: "Yes, after so many years, justice."
Next to them, Eunice Davis, the sister of one victim, said, "I still have flashbacks." Her sister, Cynthia Wesley, was 14 years old when she was killed in the Sunday morning attack on the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963.
"Cynthia is not in my life, and that's what hurts," Davis said. "There will never be closure on this for me, but I trusted the jury to do justice. It wouldn't have mattered if they were black or white."
Cherry, who did not testify in his defense, is the last suspect brought to trial in the murder of Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair. Blanton is serving a life term after his conviction last year. Robert "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss was found guilty in 1977 and died in prison. A fourth suspect, Herman Cash, died in 1984 without being charged.
It is not clear what role Cherry played in the attack on the church. Some witnesses said he lit the fuse, others that he made the bomb. Prosecutors produced a 1960s FBI interview with Cherry in which he said he had spent the Friday night before the bombing at a store where, prosecutors later learned, the church bomb was made.
Some of the most damning testimony came from a man who, as an 11-year-old, saw the four suspects at Cherry's kitchen table a few days before the attack and heard the words "bomb" and "church."
Information from The Washington Post is included in this report.