Some take delight in his downfall; others call it a tragedy that has stained the legal community.
Bobby DeLaughter, the prosecutor who secured the conviction in theinfamous Medgar Evers Mississippi murder case, is himself now headed toprison.
It was DeLaughter’s dogged 1994 prosecution and thesubsequent conviction of Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith thathelped trigger the reopening of dozens of civil rights cold cases.
DeLaughterbecame an instant hero of the civil rights movement. Alec Baldwinportrayed him in the 1996 movie, “Ghosts of Mississippi,” and hisclosing statement was once dubbed one of the greatest closing argumentsin modern law.”Is it ever too late to do the right thing?” DeLaughter told the juryof eight blacks and four whites. “For the sake of justice and the hopeof us as a civilized society, I sincerely hope and pray that it’s not.”
DeLaughterwould go on to become a state judge in 2002. His years in the robe cameto an end in 2009, when DeLaughter pleaded guilty to obstruction ofjustice for lying to an FBI agent in a far-reaching corruption probethat has rocked Mississippi’s judicial system.