United States v. Avants

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:

In 1966, Ben Chester White was murdered. The state of Mississippi charged the appellee, Ernest Henry Avants, with the murder. Shortly before his state court trial in 1967, Avants made incriminating statements to FBI agents. Avants was later acquitted on the state murder charge.

White was murdered on federal land. So, many years later in the year 2000, the federal government initiated this federal murder prosecution against Avants. During the course of these 2000 proceedings, the government sought to introduce as evidence Avants’s 1967 incriminating statements to…