Reader’s guide · Alabama
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church: Thomas Blanton’s appeal
Read the 2003 Blanton opinion as the review of his four murder convictions, with other defendants and later histories kept separate.
- Record
- Blanton v. State, 886 So. 2d 850, No. CR-00-1665
- Issued by
- Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
- Date
- August 29, 2003
- Document
- Court opinion
Reading the record
Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. was convicted in 2001 of four first-degree murders arising from the 1963 bombing of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his convictions in this opinion.
The long interval between the bombing and the prosecution is part of the setting, but the appellate court is deciding the challenges raised in Blanton’s own case. Its discussion of evidence, publicity and jury selection should be read in relation to those challenges.
The opinion is one part of the legal history. It does not serve as a single judgment about every perpetrator or replace the separate records of other prosecutions.
Questions to take to the source
- Which evidence and trial rulings does Blanton challenge?
- How does the opinion distinguish publicity concerns from proof of an unfair jury?
- Where does the judgment address Blanton’s case rather than the broader history of the bombing?
Follow the evidence
Open the source record
These links open the cited documents on their hosts. No account or email is needed to read this guide.
- Blanton v. State — 2003 opinion
Court opinion reproduced in Justia’s case-law archive.
Companion reading for True Crime Alabama: The Birmingham Files. This guide addresses the dated records above; later proceedings may have their own decisions.