# Reopening the Emmett Till case **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 24, 2004, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reopening-the-emmett-till-case/270954 "2004-10-24T23:14:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reopening-the-emmett-till-case/270954/21 "2004-10-25T20:43:04Z")
Sorry, not at home; don’t have books. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but that’s what I remember reading. Maybe it wasn’t the whole US. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reopening-the-emmett-till-case/270954/22 "2004-10-25T21:40:07Z")
God, what a horrific story. I didn’t know all the details until I saw the show. That picture of poor Emmett’s face after his death…Ghastly. It doesn’t matter how old the perpetrators or accessories are. Guilty is guilty. Age doesn’t make that fade away. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reopening-the-emmett-till-case/270954/23 "2004-10-26T01:38:13Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Color me insanely optimistic, color me hopelessly naive. I just hope that the passage of time has allowed her to reflect on what happened. > She did end up divorcing Bryant-their lives after the event were never the same-their store had to close (no one would do business with them), they couldn’t get work in most places, etc. > > If George Fucking Wallace could have a change of heart, why couldn’t she? > I knew about the open casket-in 11th grade, our teacher showed us _Eyes on the Prize_, and I believe they had footage of his funeral. (Although I don’t recall his body looking that horrid) Thanks for the post. It’s a little ray of justice knowing that the town turned their backs on them. Would like to think the jurists were treated with equal disdain. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reopening-the-emmett-till-case/270954/24 "2004-10-26T04:28:15Z")
I admit I love-love-love when smirking old bastards like [Byron de la Beckwith](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_De_La_Beckwith), [Thomas Blanton & Bobby Frank Cherry](http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm) or [Lawrence Rainey](http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Rainey.htm)\* and [Cecil Price](http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Price.htm)\*, so secure in the knowledge they’ve gotten away with murder they openly brag about it, end up having their “golden years” tortured by the ghosts of evils past. However, I don’t expect much of the reopening of the Till case: the evidence is based on fifty year old memories, the testimony of people who have been dead for many years and can’t be cross-examined and other evidence that could be impeached enough to establish “reasonable doubt”. I just saw the 60 MINUTES piece tonight (on video) and I feel major sympathy for the 81 year old black man questioned in connection with the murder. Even if he did participate I can’t imagine that it was anything other than duress and it’s even possible that if he is guilty then he has convinced himself of his innocence in the past 50 years. He was in roughly the same situation as a Sonderkommando in the concentration camps. Mrs. Bryant- there simply is not enough hard evidence to convict here even though she’s probably guilty as hell. At least she’s been outed and has to squirm (and will probably be moving very soon). There’s some satisfaction in that; to quote the same Bible that most of these people use to justify themselves (and may get around to actually reading one day), \*let not [their] hoar head[s] go down to the grave in peace… \*. But I fear discomfort will be her only sentence that sticks. There’s an excellent Till resource [here](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/) incidentally (a PBS site). The story of Emmett Till was also fictionalized to serve as the last episode of [I’ll Fly Away](http://imdb.com/title/tt0101124/) (a low-rated but exceptionally high quality series from the makers of _Northern Exposure_ set in the Deep South in the 1950s- one of the best series _ever_ made about race relations in the south in that it portrayed neither side as uniform or one-dimensional). ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reopening-the-emmett-till-case/270954/25 "2004-10-26T05:41:14Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I just saw the 60 MINUTES piece tonight (on video) and I feel major sympathy for the 81 year old black man questioned in connection with the murder. Even if he did participate I can’t imagine that it was anything other than duress and it’s even possible that if he is guilty then he has convinced himself of his innocence in the past 50 years. He was in roughly the same situation as a Sonderkommando in the concentration camps. And 60 Minutes did say that it was surely under duress, although I wish they had said this before they brought him out. I think they could’ve made the point a little more strongly. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reopening-the-emmett-till-case/270954/26 "2004-10-26T06:08:46Z")
Here’s an odd question: Suppose (the former) Mrs. Bryant went to trial. Her husband fully confessed his role in the murder in his magazine interview after his aquittal. Suppose he outright said that she was involved (which he didn’t, but just suppose): could this be used against her or would she be protected by the right of a husband not to testify against his wife? Two odd circumstances here are that 1- her husband has been dead for many years and 2- they were divorced by the time he died (but not when he confessed in the interview). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reopening-the-emmett-till-case/270954.md?page=1)