U.S. v. Wood
| Decision Date | 22 January 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-8006,85-8006 |
| Citation | 780 F.2d 955 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Mailon Paul WOOD, Kenneth E. Davis, William L. Deering and Winford "Billy" Wood, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Frank P. Samford, III (Court-appointed), Decatur, Ga., for Mailon wood.
Thomas E. Spraley (Court-appointed), Atlanta, Ga., for K. Davis.
Tony H. Hight (Court-appointed), Fairburn, Ga., for Deering.
Stephanie Kearns, Federal Defender Program, Inc., Atlanta, Ga., for W. Wood.
Stephen Cowen, Asst. U.S. Atty., Atlanta, Ga., Marie E. Klimesz, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Div., Washington, D.C., for plaintiff-appellee.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Before TJOFLAT and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges, and DUMBAULD *, District Judge.
I.
This criminal case arises from two incidents of racially motivated violence. On November 23, 1982, appellants Mailon Paul Wood, Kenneth E. Davis, and William L. Deering, along with Lyndon Terrell, all of whom were members of a Ku Klux Klan Klavern in Haralson County, Georgia, decided to "serenade" a white woman whom they felt associated too often with members of the black community. That evening, the four men drove to the residence of Mrs. Peggy Jo French, who lived with her two children, Lori and Michael Roper, ages fifteen and nineteen, in Waco, Georgia. (Her husband, having been sentenced to prison for a crime not pertinent to this case, was not living with the family.)
The men, all masked with the exception of Mailon Wood, burst into the French residence with guns. They told Mrs. French that they were looking for "niggers" and guns and that if they found any it was "going to be bad." They began emptying drawers and kicked in a wall between two rooms. One of the masked men grabbed Mrs. French and said that he knew she was a "nigger lover." Another man, later identified as Deering, then threw her across a coffee table and beat her with a leather strap eight to ten times across her back, arms, buttocks, and the back of her legs.
Prior to the beating, Wood went into Lori Roper's bedroom with a gun and brought her out into the living room where she witnessed the attack on her mother. Wood then took Lori back into her bedroom and asked her if she or her mother or brother had been sleeping with any "niggers." After approximately five minutes, he returned with Lori to the living room and forced her to sit in a chair.
Michael Roper, having seen the lights of the assailants' car as it pulled into the driveway, was walking down the hall from his bedroom when he heard a commotion in the living room. When he got to the end of the hall he was told by a masked man with a gun to stop right there or the man would "blow [his] head off." Michael then witnessed Deering beating his mother with a strap. Michael was forced to sit on the couch with his head between his knees. Deering then hit him with the strap and told him that he better not be using drugs or hanging around with any blacks.
Wood then stated that he was particularly concerned with Lori Roper's upbringing and threatened that, if the family did not straighten out, he would come back and take Lori with him. Prior to leaving, Wood reiterated that nobody in the family should continue to associate with "niggers." He warned Mrs. French that he and his friends would have people watching her house and that, if they ever caught her with black people there, he and his friends would come back and tar and feather her. Just before the four men left, they told Mrs. French and her two children to keep their heads down for a long time. When Michael Roper raised his head before the men left he was told that, if he did that again, his head would be blown off. As they were leaving, the men promised to return if they learned of the presence of any more "niggers" in the French residence.
When the men had left, Mrs. French and her children went outside to drive to the police station, but the tires on her car had been slashed. She was unable to call the police because her telephone lines had been cut. After replacing the slashed tires, she drove to the police station and reported the incident.
Several months later, Mrs. French and Lori Roper saw a news segment on television of a Ku Klux Klan rally and recognized one of the men participating in the rally as the unmasked man who was a member of the group that had terrorized their family on the night of November 23. Mrs. French contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) which obtained a copy of the videotape and replayed it before her and her children. As a result, the FBI was able to identify the unmasked man as appellant Mailon Wood.
On February 9, 1983, prior to Mrs. French's identification of Wood, the second incident involving racially motivated violence occurred at the residence of Warren and Peggy Cokley. Deering told Terrell and Wood, at the conclusion of another Klavern meeting, 1 that there was a white woman (Peggy Cokley) in Tallapoosa, Georgia, living with a black man (Warren Cokley) and that they needed to pay them a visit. They decided that they "would get together on that later on sometime." Approximately two weeks later, Terrell telephoned either Deering or Wood to determine when they would deal with the Cokleys. They settled on a date to meet at Deering's house. On that day, Terrell induced a fellow Klavern member, Kent Adams, to take him to Deering's house by telling him they were going rabbit hunting. When they arrived, they found Deering, Mailon Wood, and his brother and fellow Klavern member, appellant Winford "Billy" Wood, present. Davis arrived soon after. Terrell asked Adams if he wanted to "go scare somebody," to which Adams indicated that he would participate, and the six men rode in Davis' van to the Cokley residence. On the way, they decided that Terrell and Deering would go in the front door and that the others would go in the back.
When they reached the Cokleys' home, all of the men except Davis got out of the van and approached the house. Terrell and Adams put on face masks which Terrell had made sometime earlier. Mailon and Billy Wood and Deering put stockings over their heads. Mailon tried to cut the Cokleys' telephone line but expressed little concern when he failed because he and his accomplices had ensured that the police would not be available to interfere with their activity that evening. 2
As planned, Terrell and Deering entered the front door. Warren Cokley saw Deering, whom he knew, 3 enter with a gun pointed at him and asked him what he was doing. Deering responded, "you think your a smart ass nigger," and the two began to scuffle. By this time the three men at the back door entered. As they did so, Peggy Cokley ran out the front door to the home of Warren Cokley's mother, Georgia Wise, who lived next door. Mailon Wood and Deering then beat Warren Cokley. During the beating, Cokley managed to remove a small pocket knife from his pocket and cut Deering on the leg. At this point, Georgia Wise ran into the house and began screaming at Wood, Deering, and the others. They immediately left the premises to rendezvous with Davis, and Wise helped Cokley, who was bleeding profusely, to his feet. 4
The five men met Davis and the van on the highway, and the group returned to Deering's house. When they arrived, they decided that Adams, Terrell, and Davis would take Deering in Adams' car to a hospital in Anniston, Alabama, where they would probably not be recognized, to receive treatment for the cut Deering had received. After Deering had been treated, the four men returned to Georgia. Adams dropped Deering and Davis off at Deering's house. As Adams was driving Terrell home, he asked Terrell why they had beaten Cokley, to which Terrell replied, "black and white."
The Tallapoosa Police Department investigated the Cokley incident. Officers collected blood samples from four different places in the Cokley residence. A sample of Warren Cokley's blood was taken while he was in the hospital, and a sample of Deering's blood was taken after the local police arrested Deering on February 11, 1983. The laboratory results of the samples taken from the Cokleys' house revealed two different blood types. The state crime laboratory determined that Cokley's blood type was similar to three of the four samples taken from the Cokley residence and that the fourth sample was consistent in every respect with that of Deering's. 5
Following Deering's arrest, the Klavern dissolved. Terrell prepared a resignation notice for Deering dated prior to the Cokley incident and gave it to the Grand Dragon of the Klan in Georgia on February 11, 1983. On July 12, 1983, and August 9, 1983, Deering appeared before a federal grand jury investigating the Cokley incident. 6 6] He denied entering the Cokley residence on February 9, 1983, or being involved in any way with the incident, and maintained that he did not know who was responsible. Further, he testified that his leg had been cut while he was trying to break up a fight in the parking lot of a bar in Anniston, Alabama, and that a friend had been with him. 7 He also stated that he had been a member of the Klan for five or six months and had joined by completing an application he picked up from a man distributing literature on a street in Tallapoosa. He testified that he attended one or two rallies but did not see any of his friends, neighbors, or associates at either of the rallies. He also maintained that he had resigned from the Klan on February 1, 1983, and that ten days passed before he heard anyone mention the Cokleys.
On August 8, 1984, the grand jury returned a seven count indictment against Mailon Wood, Davis, Billy Wood, Deering, and Adams. 8 Count one charged Mailon Wood and Davis with violating 18 U.S.C. Sec. 241 (1982), 9 by conspiring to interfere, in violation of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 3631 (1982), ...
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