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All Too Familiar .Murder Trial in (’olnuilL Oorlt;*ially Houard lleuufuilColquitt isn't much of a town. Normally it is a drowsy, nondescript farm community in southwest Georgia, close to the Alabama line.Motorists taking Route 39 south pass through the town without realizing they have been there. But one ol thesedajs they v illTh* eligible voting |Kpul»iMn is 2.651. And It percent i,lm at the I nk a then stopped ;that is black, but onlj 10 per cent or 183 are register! to \ '\\ \I*I*ROA( HINCi C AR, driven b Jest, failed to dim his headlights. The white man swung his car around in angr pursuit. A witness in Merritt s car testified at a pretrial hearing:“Well, we was going down the highway and met this carand he didn't dim his lights and -■ 1) n tu i d around andwent back and started following him and pulled up behind Judge \\. I. Greer, who denied hail to the black defen-werful man in the county. Robert Jest grew up on the sheriff’s sister s farm.JEST SAID: “The Sheriff looked at my father (who accompanied him to the jailhousei and said. Get out of here you damn black son of a bitch. I'll blow your brains out.II \LESS SOMETHING unforscen happens a murder trial will soon move into the white-c olumned Miller County Courthouse and the eyes ol the nation will be focused on itWith his car blocking Jest’s, Merritt got out and approached the Negro who remained seated in his car. The street was deserted and dark.Je ed Me ask me could I dim my damn lig s.1 said they were dim. but if they weren't I was sorry. HeA black man is accused killing a white man. ( olquitt is (Merritt said I’m glt; ag to teach you to dim your damn m dangf i •' S ^ i!! ® national spotligt as a j, ■ „ ,u black f a bitlt; h.’ He was steady cussOut-of-town reporters have begun to arrive, asking questions, making notes on the anatomy of this crime in the Deep South.These facts are uncontested:Robert Lee Jest, 23, a soft-spoken Negro tenant farmer,.11 -S i LATER TOLD reporters in the jailhouse that Mer* i it! opened the do* s cai and tried to drag him out. ‘ 1dant, was an uncle of the prosecutor and like the prosecutor, also a distant cousin of the victim of the shooting.The prosecutor, Peter Zack Greer was a leader of the unsuccessful movement to bar Julian Bond, a black activist, from his seat in the Georgia Legislature.Two young attorneys agreed to defend Robert Jest, but they said the odds are heavily weighed against the possibility of getting a fair trial, even though Jest acted in self-defense.THE DEFENSE LAWYERS say Georgia law provides forfather of four, awaits trial for his life. It is alleged he fired it twice into the ground. “The white man grappled for deliberately shot and killed Robert Ladon Merritt, 20, who lhe gun ynd jt ucm ofj in „Merritt died shortly after at the Miller County Hospital The attending physician w?as his foster uncle, Dr. Hinton Jwas scared I didn’t know vhat 1 guvs they were, each county rawing a list of prospective gra ljuioisandcoming up on me like that. He was acting like a wild man tnal jurors at random from persons eligible to^vote. But ifor something, like he was going crazy ”Jest said he reached under the seat for a .22 pistol, then “intelligent and upright citizens.the jury commissioners are not satisfied with the list of jurors they may supplement it with persons they considernwas not by Colquitt standards an ordinary white man. He was related in s ■ vay to almost everybody w;ho runs the town and consequent ..'I : :: *Last June 21. a Sunday near midnight. Merritt myoung male companions were driving into town with a supply of beer in the back seat.Robert Jest and his father both said that by “picking all over the county you might find two or three jurors who would be fair.’’The defense attorneys know that among the grand jurors Who indicted Jest for murder of Robert Merritt there was a Justice moved swiftly. Jest was arrested at his home by man named W. B. Rentz who is widely known as the deadM ntt grandfather, iff Felix Tabb, 65, the mlt; t po- man's uncle b marriage.
Newspaper Details
Willoughby News Herald
Willoughby, Ohio, US
Wed, Feb 24, 1971
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Austin C.
TX, USA 08 Jun 2020
Other Publications Near Willoughby, Ohio
Willoughby News Herald
