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Defense begins in church bombing trial

Bobby Frank Cherry

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (CNN) -- Defense attorneys for Bobby Frank Cherry, on trial for the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham that killed four black schoolgirls, began presenting their case Saturday, then adjourned until Monday after a half-day of testimony.

Cherry is charged with four counts of murder and four counts of arson in the slayings at the 16th Street Baptist Church.

Once ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial, Cherry is not expected to testify for the defense. His attorney, Mickey Johnson, said his client is ill and uncommunicative.

Closing arguments could begin late Monday or Tuesday, with the case going to the jury by midweek. If convicted, the 71-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman could be sentenced to life in prison. The prosecution wrapped up its case Friday.

The key defense witness Saturday was 78-year-old Mary Cunningham, an informant for the FBI in the 1960s, who denied information in a 1964 FBI memo that quoted her as saying she had seen Cherry plant the bomb at the church.

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"I did not make that claim. ... I didn't do it. I didn't see it," Cunningham testified.

Robert Chambliss, who was known as "Dynamite Bob," was convicted of murder in the bombing in 1977 and died in prison. Ex-Klansman Thomas Blanton Jr. was convicted of four counts of murder last year and was sentenced to life in prison. A fourth suspect, Herman Cash, died in 1994 without being charged.

Cherry was supposed to have gone on trial with Blanton, but was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial. After psychologists testified that Cherry was faking, the judge reversed himself and declared Cherry competent.