A jury convicted three white youths of conspiring to burn a rural black church but acquitted them in the first trial involving a new federal racial hatred law.
Alan Odom, Brandy Boone and John Kenneth Cumbie were convicted Monday on a conspiracy count in the June 30 torching that destroyed St. Joe Baptist Church, a 21-member church in the Little River community.Prosecutors said they filed the racial hatred counts because Boone attended a Ku Klux Klan rally two days earlier. The other two were not at the rally but went to a party attended by rallygoers on the night of the fire.
The new federal charge imposes harsher penalties - a mandatory 10-year sentence - for arson in a religious structure when race is the motive. It was passed after a rash of fires at black churches in the South in 1995 and 1996.
Although none was convicted on the new hate crime charge, Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Bordenkircher said he was convinced the Klan rally inspired the arson.