August 13, 1955 – Murder of African-American Lamar Smith by Whites to Prevent Black Voting in Mississippi

Lamar Smith, born in 1892, was a World War I veteran and voting rights activist who helped Black voters fill out absentee ballots so they could vote without risking their lives. He was risking his own, however, and was shot dead in broad daylight at the age of 63 on this day in history on the steps of the Lincoln County Courthouse, in Brookhaven, Mississippi.

Lamar Smith

The DOJ Civil Rights Division has a file online about this case, in which it reports:

Three white men, Noah Smith, Mack Smith, and Charles Falvey, were arrested for the shooting.  According to an August 17, 1955 Daily Worker article, a state Coroner’s Jury heard testimony for four hours on the night of August 16 and then ruled that the victim had died as a result ‘of a gunshot wound in an altercation with Noah Smith, Mack Smith and Charles Falvey and probably other parties unknown.’”

The three men were arrested in connection with Smith’s murder. On September 13, 1955, an all-white Brookhaven grand jury failed to return any indictments. (All witnesses claimed that they did not see any crime take place, meaning that the grand jury could make no indictment.)
  
In January 1956, the newly elected local District Attorney empaneled another grand jury and subpoenaed several witnesses but no new evidence was developed to support an indictment, despite indications that numerous people would have witnessed the murder.

Ultimately, none of the three suspects ever faced charges.

In the fall of 2008, the FBI initiated a review of the circumstances surrounding the victim’s death. The three main suspects were already dead by that time.

In the “Legal Analysis” appended to the DOJ report cited above, the author of the report found the following:

This matter does not constitute a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes. 

First, the federal government cannot prosecute the three identified subjects because they are deceased.  The local Coroner’s Jury ruled that “probably other parties unknown” were involved in the murder but those parties have never been identified.

Second, prior to 1994, federal criminal civil rights violations were not capital offenses, thereby subjecting them to a five-year statute of limitations.  . . . While the Civil Rights Division has used non-civil rights statutes to overcome the statute of limitations challenge in certain cases, such as those occurring on federal land and kidnapping resulting in death, the facts of the present case do not lend themselves to prosecution under other statutes.

Based on the foregoing, this matter lacks prosecutive merit and should be closed.  Additionally, because the subjects are deceased, this matter will not be forwarded to the state for prosecutive review.  AUSA Glenda Haynes, Southern District of Mississippi, concurs in this recommendation.”