United States v. Price

United States v. Price
United States v. Price
	Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 9, 1965; Decided March 28, 1966
Full case name	United States v. Cecil Price, et al.
Citations	383 U.S. 787 (more) 86 S. Ct. 1152; 16 L. Ed. 2d 267
Case history
Prior	Indictments dismissed by District Court (reversed and remanded)
Subsequent	7 of the 18 defendants convicted on remand
Holding
	The 14th amendment grants the United States authority to indict state actors and all private citizens who assist state actors during alleged crimes became de-facto state actors themselves and as a result, find themselves in the exact same legal jeopardy as the de jure state actors they assisted. District court reversed.
Court membership
	Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas; Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II; William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart; Byron White · Abe Fortas
Case opinions
Majority	Fortas, joined by unanimous
Concurrence	Black

United States v. Cecil Price, et al., also known as the Mississippi Burning trial or Mississippi Burning case, was a criminal trial where the United States charged a group of 18 men with conspiring in a Ku Klux Klan plot to murder three young civil rights workers (Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman) in Philadelphia, Mississippi on June 21, 1964 during Freedom Summer. The trial, conducted in Meridian, Mississippi with U.S. District Court Judge W. Harold Cox presiding, resulted in convictions of 7 of the 18 defendants. Another defendant, James Edward Jordan, pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution.^[1]

^ "Billy Wayne Posey, Cecil Ray Price, Horace Doyle Barnette, Jimmy Snowden, Jimmy Arledge, Alton Wayne Roberts and Sam Holloway Bowers, Jr., Appellants, v. United States of America, Appellee, 416 F.2d 545 (5th Cir. 1969)". Justia Law. Retrieved July 13, 2023.

[1] "Billy Wayne Posey, Cecil Ray Price, Horace Doyle Barnette, Jimmy Snowden, Jimmy Arledge, Alton Wayne Roberts and Sam Holloway Bowers, Jr., Appellants, v. United States of America, Appellee, 416 F.2d 545 (5th Cir. 1969)". Justia Law. Retrieved July 13, 2023.

[1]

United States v. Price
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 9, 1965 Decided March 28, 1966
Full case name	United States v. Cecil Price, et al.
Citations	383 U.S. 787 (more) 86 S. Ct. 1152; 16 L. Ed. 2d 267
Case history
Prior	Indictments dismissed by District Court (reversed and remanded)
Subsequent	7 of the 18 defendants convicted on remand
Holding
The 14th amendment grants the United States authority to indict state actors and all private citizens who assist state actors during alleged crimes became de-facto state actors themselves and as a result, find themselves in the exact same legal jeopardy as the de jure state actors they assisted. District court reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart Byron White · Abe Fortas
Case opinions
Majority	Fortas, joined by unanimous
Concurrence	Black