Moses Attacks Jury Selection System

Robert P. Moses, director of the Mississippi Freedom Project, last night challenged the Justice Department to secure a new system of selecting Federal grand juries in order to promote justice in civil rights cases.

Speaking to over 400 people in the First Congregational Church, Moses charged that the selection of Federal grand jurors from voting rolls in states where Negroes are prevented from voting precludes justice. He referred specifically to the Biloxi, Miss. grand jury which failed to bring indictments against the slayers of three civil rights workers killed in June.

Neshoba Murders

"If the Justice Department and the Federal government really wanted a fair hearing on the Neshoba murders, they would have gone to the Mississippi district court and asked for a different method of selecting Federal grand juries," he said. "If they don't do that, they are not really interested."

"It's a vicious circle," Moses said. "We try to register Negroes to vote in order to change a corrupt social system, and our workers get killed in the process. Then the government takes the murder case to a grand jury empanelled on the basis of that system."

He suggested that tax rolls, rather than voting rolls, be used as a source of jurors.

"The Big Question"

Moses declared that the Federal government has the power to secure such reforms. "The big question," he said, "is whether it is willing to probe into our whole system of law, whether it is willing to weigh its concept of the law and the sanctity of the Federal system against the lives of the people being killed in Mississippi.

"The Justice Department." Moses continued "believes that the essence of the Federal system is the cooperation between Federal and local officials," he continued. "But what happens when local law enforcement officers refuse to cooperate? What happens when the sheriff is a murderer? The answer is what has occurred in Mississippi--the complete breakdown of a system of justice."

Moses also discussed the challenge which the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party plans to bring in January against the seating of three Mississippi congressmen in the House of Representatives. The challenge is being brought in the names of Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, Mrs. Victoria Gray, and Mrs. Annie Devine, three Negro Mississippians who ran against the white Congressmen in "Freedom Elections," conducted in November by the Freedom Party.

Moral But Not Legal

"As they did in the Freedom Party challenge at the Democratic National Convention," he predicted, "people will say, 'You are moral and we give you morality but you're not legal and we can't deal with you. This is a country of law and order.'"

"The trouble with this country," Moses added, "is that every one is so concerned with law and order, but no one cares about law and justice.