May 21, 2002 Posted: 4:06 PM EDT
(2006 GMT) CNN
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (CNN) -- Closing arguments
concluded Tuesday afternoon in the murder trial of
Bobby Frank Cherry, accused of murder in the 1963
church bombing in Birmingham that killed four black
schoolgirls.
The jury is expected to begin deliberations
shortly.
In closing arguments that began Tuesday morning,
prosecutor Doug Jones called Cherry and his alleged
co-conspirators "the forefathers of
terrorism."
"Bobby Frank Cherry is a murderer who has
lived among us, " Jones told the jurors,
referring to the 39 years since the crime that
Cherry has lived as a free man.
Cherry, 71, is accused of helping a band of
Klansmen plant a bomb that exploded on September 15,
1963, at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The
bomb went off as worshippers arrived for services,
killing 11-year-old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds
Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia
Wesley.
Cherry is charged with four counts of murder and
four counts of arson. If convicted, the 71-year-old
former Ku Klux Klansman could be sentenced to life
in prison.
Two other men have been convicted in the bombing.
Robert Chambliss, known as "Dynamite
Bob," was convicted of murder in 1977 and died
in prison. Ex-Klansman Thomas Blanton Jr. was
convicted of murder last year and was sentenced to
life in prison. A fourth suspect, Herman Cash, died
in 1994 without being charged.
Cherry was to have gone on trial with Blanton,
but was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial.
After psychologists testified that Cherry was
faking, the judge reversed himself and declared
Cherry competent.
Referring to the previous convictions, defense
attorney Mickey Johnson argued, "We are not
going to let the state convict purely on guilt by
association."
Johnson admitted that his client's former
membership in the Ku Klux Klan was a strike against
him, but he urged jurors had to look beyond that in
weighing their verdict.
"This is an easy man to prosecute, because
he is the human equivalent of a cockroach,"
Johnson said.
-- CNN Correspondent Gary Tuchman contributed to
this report.
