By JAY REEVES
The Associated Press
5/2/01 3:08 PM

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- After six days of testimony about a 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls, the jurors prayed. They listened again and again to FBI tapes linking a former Ku Klux Klansman to the crime.

Then, with a swiftness that surprised some, the jury of eight whites and four blacks convicted Thomas Blanton Jr., 62, in the nation's deadliest single act of violence during the civil rights era.

It took less than 2½ hours to convict Blanton in a case that took 38 years to bring to trial.

"We went back over the tape and listened, and determined that we heard enough," juror Betty Walls, 69, said in Wednesday's Birmingham News.

Blanton's lawyer, John Robbins, said the speed of the jurors' decision will be a key in his request for a new trial. "A speedy verdict suggests it's an emotional one," Robbins said.

He also said an FBI tape secretly recorded through a wall in Blanton's kitchen in 1964 -- evidence jurors cited as crucial to the verdict -- was illegally obtained, providing further basis for appeal.

A prosecutor defended the jury, saying it gave the evidence "every bit of consideration."

"The jury indicated that before they started this process they had prayer," said U.S. Attorney Doug Jones. "They thought about it. They deliberated and they analyzed the evidence."

Blanton was convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison for the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963. Another ex-Klansman, Robert "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss, was convicted of murder in the bombing in 1977 and died in prison.

The blast killed Denise McNair, who was 11, and Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson, who were 14.

It was never made clear during the trial just what Blanton's role was in the bombing, an act prosecutors say was carried out by a few racists. A third ex-Klansman, Bobby Frank Cherry, 71, was indicted with Blanton last year, but his case was postponed because of questions about his mental competency.

Blanton, who showed little emotion throughout the trial, was held in protective custody in the Jefferson County Jail, awaiting transfer to state prison.

"He is not suicidal. He is not despondent," Robbins said. "He's holding up pretty well. His spirits are up."

The jurors, once they were seated around the wooden conference table in the carpeted jury room, concentrated on the FBI tapes that were at the heart of the government's case.

"It was the most agonizing thing that I'll ever do in my life, going to a courtroom under those circumstances," Walls said. "I really felt like the Lord put us there."

Emotion welled up as the final decision was made. The foreman of the jury -- a black woman -- seemed to fight back tears as she read the verdict to Blanton, who sat hunched over at the defense table.

"I think we cried. I know I did," Walls told the newspaper.

Robbins said the speed of the verdict proved his claim that the case should have been moved outside Birmingham, where, he argued, most people already had made up their minds about Blanton's guilt.

In addition, he said, his appeal will challenge the lack of any white men on the jury and the long delay in bringing the case to trial.

The tape, which Robbins tried to keep from jurors during pretrial maneuvering that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, included references by Blanton to attending a meeting where "we planned the bomb."

Transcripts produced by the government helped jurors understand the words on the tape, which was digitally enhanced but still murky.

"I feel confident this verdict will be sustained on appeal," the prosecutor said.