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Appeal promised in church bombing conviction

Blanton is led away in handcuffs after being found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (CNN) -- A defense attorney in the Birmingham bombing trial has promised to appeal the "emotional" verdict that saw his client convicted on four counts of first-degree murder in the civil rights-era attack that killed four African-American girls.

Tuesday night, the jury convicted Thomas Blanton, 62, of plotting the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church that killed the girls, who had been preparing for a church youth service.

Blanton, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, was sentenced to life in prison. The jury, made up of eight whites and four blacks -- only one of them a man -- deliberated for two hours.

VIDEO A biracial jury convicts Thomas Blanton Jr. in the 1963 bombing deaths of four girls in a black Birmingham church. CNN's Brian Cabell reports Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)   LEGAL RESOURCES Latest Legal News Law Library FindLaw Consumer Center Select a topic Bankruptcy Discrimination Divorce Estate Planning Landlord-Tenant Personal Injury Taxes

The focus of the appeal may be a nearly 40-year-old set of FBI tapes.

The FBI planted a hidden microphone in Blanton's apartment in 1964 and taped his conversations with Mitchell Burns, a fellow Klansman-turned-informant.

"At the time the tape was obtained, that tape was not admissible in court and we say it was taken in violation of my client's Fourth Amendment rights," said defense attorney John Robbins in a CNN interview. "So it is our position that it was illegally obtained. It was not admissible in 1964, and should not be admissible in a court of law in 2001."

Prosecuting attorney Doug Jones told CNN he doesn't think the use of the tapes as evidence against Blanton will be overturned if appealed.

"Those tapes were not likely to have ever been able be used in the 1960s," Jones said, "but there have been a lot of changes in the law, and the way people look at those tapes."

Robbins also suggested his client never really had a fair chance with the case being tried in a Birmingham courtroom.

"Everybody in this community knows something about this," Robbins said. "For 37 years it has been written in books, newspapers that my client is guilty, and if you say it enough people are gonna believe it."

After conviction, Blanton was immediately taken into custody.

Blanton is one of four men tied to the bombing, prosecutors say. Robert "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss was convicted of murder in 1977 and died in prison. Another suspect, Herman Cash, died before he was charged.

Bobby Frank Cherry, 71, might never face trial after Judge Garrett ruled this month Cherry is not mentally competent to assist his attorneys.

"I don't expect any other indictments," Jones said

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