JACKSONVILLE - A conspiracy of secrecy by Jacksonville police denied justice to the children of a black woman slain in 1964, the family's attorney told an appeals court.
But Scott Makar, an attorney for the city of Jacksonville, told the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta that, despite a racist police coverup in 1964, there is no evidence that it blocked Johnnie Mae Chappell's family from the courts.
"Where was the barrier that was imposed to prevent . . . a suit?" Makar said Thursday.
Chappell, 35, was fatally shot from a passing car as she searched for her purse the day that race riots gripped Jacksonville.
Four white men were arrested five months later by two police detectives who claimed police officials destroyed evidence and never assigned the case for investigation. The two detectives claim they were removed from the case and later fired.
One of the defendants, J.W. Rich, told police he and his friends were driving around and decided to shoot a black person, though he later denied that. Rich served three years in prison after a jury convicted him of manslaughter. Prosecutors dropped charges against the other three men, citing insufficient evidence.
Chappell's children learned of the coverup in 1996 when one of the detectives, C. Lee Cody, approached her youngest son, Shelton, at a memorial service.
Shelton, just 4 months old when his mother died, sued the four men and Jacksonville police. A federal judge dismissed the case in 2001, saying the statute of limitations for filing a suit had long passed.
The family's attorney, Gray Thomas, told the judges Thursday that the Chappell children never got to seek justice in their mother's death. He noted "the complete absence of any police reports to this day."
