Dragging Death’S 3Rd Trial Begins

Jury selection began Monday for the last of three white men arrested in the dragging death of a black man, with a defense lawyer claiming his client is no racist and had no motive to commit the crime.

Shawn Allen Berry is hoping to avoid the fate of his two white supremacist co-defendants. John William King and Lawrence Russell Brewer both were convicted earlier this year of capital murder and sentenced to death for the June 1998 slaying of James Byrd Jr. King and Brewer were members of a white supremacist prison gang, the Confederate Knights of America, while jailed together.

“Shawn Berry is not a racist, was not a racist, has no racist writings, is not a member of any white supremacist group, has no racial tattoos,” Berry’s attorney, Lum Hawthorn, told 132 potential jurors crammed into Jasper County Courthouse. “He has no motive for committing a racial hate crime. And he did not.”

Jasper County District Attorney Guy James Gray said Berry has given differing versions of the crime to authorities and to reporters.

Gray told jurors that at issue is “Shawn Berry’s credibility, what he has said compared to facts and the crime scene.”

“You will measure those statements against each other to see if he’s truthful … and measure those statements against known proven forensic facts once they’re established in this courtroom.”

Berry, 24, is the youngest of the men accused of chaining Byrd, 49, to the back of a pickup truck the early morning hours of June 7, 1998, then dragging him nearly three miles over a bumpy country road just outside Jasper, about 125 miles northeast of Houston.

Byrd’s shredded torso, minus his head, an arm and shoulder, was discovered after daylight, dumped at the end of a road directly between a black cemetery and church. The site, prosecutors said, was deliberate and meant to deliver a hate message.

Of the 170 potential jurors who arrived in court Monday, 38 were excused quickly for medical or other reasons.