LAWFUEL – The Legal Newswire – It may have taken 43 years, but a civil rights-era killing of two black men in Mississippi has resulted in a guilty finding by a federal jury of a former Ku Klux Klansman charged with kidnapping.

Reuters report that a federal jury deliberated just two hours before convicting James Seale, who was also charged with conspiracy in the killings of 19-year-old Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore who were kidnapped while hitchhiking.

According to the indictment and testimony, they were taken to a national forest and Seale trained a shotgun on the teenagers while his companions beat them.

They then stuffed Dee and Moore into the trunk of a car, drove them to an offshoot of the Mississippi River, attached heavy weights to them and threw them alive into the water from a boat, prosecutors said.

The jury made clear neither of the kidnapped men was “returned unharmed,” a statement that may increase a sentence whose maximum amounts to a life term on each count.

LAWFUEL – The Legal Newswire – Left for dead a week ago, legislation to strengthen border security while bestowing legal status on millions of illegal immigrants is showing signs of life, ABC reports.

Senate leaders announced plans Thursday night to revive the White House-backed measure as early as next week, although neither Majority Leader Harry Reid nor his GOP counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, issued any predictions the bill ultimately would pass.

Instead, they issued a statement that said in its entirety: “We met this evening with several of the senators involved in the immigration bill negotiations. Based on that discussion, the immigration bill will return to the Senate floor after completion” of sweeping energy legislation that has occupied the Senate this week.

There was no immediate reaction from the bill’s numerous Senate critics, who have consistently attacked the legislation as conferring amnesty on the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the country.