Autopsy cited in Jimmie Lee Jackson civil rights-era slaying
James Bonard Fowler, 73, of Black, a town in Geneva County, admits he shot Jimmie Lee Jackson on Feb. 18, 1965, but said it was in self-defense. He has pleaded "not guilty" and remains free on a $250,000 bond. Historians say that Jackson's death was the catalyst for the historic Selma-to-Montgomery march.
George Beck, Fowler's attorney, said Jackson's 1965 autopsy report reveals that the doctor who performed an operation on Jackson at Selma's Good Samaritan Hospital killed him.
District Attorney Michael Jackson, who is prosecuting the 43-year-old civil rights case, said that's ridiculous. He said there never would have been an operation had it not been for a gunshot wound inflicted by Fowler.
"Shoffeitt's autopsy report stated that the surgeon who operated on Jimmie Lee Jackson failed to sew up a hole in his intestine and that allowed feces to enter Jackson's abdomen, causing an infection called peritonitis, from which he died," Beck said.
He said Jackson's attending physician, Dr. William Dinkins, who is also dead, listed the cause of death on Jackson's death certificate as "peritonitis, due to condition of gunshot wound."