Biography
Al McSurely was a civil-rights and anti-poverty organizer working in eastern Kentucky. Pike County officers raided the home he shared with his wife Margaret on August 11, 1967, seized their books and papers, and arrested both of them under Kentucky’s sedition law. McSurely spent one week in the Pike County jail before obtaining release on bail. A federal court later held the state sedition statute unconstitutional, and the charges did not produce a conviction. The subsequent contempt-of-Congress prosecution resulted in a one-year sentence for Alan before U.S. District Judge John Lewis Smith Jr. The convictions were reversed on appeal in December 1972. They did not serve these contempt sentences.
The subsequent contempt-of-Congress prosecution resulted in a one-year sentence for Alan before U.S. District Judge John Lewis Smith Jr. The convictions were reversed on appeal in December 1972. They did not serve these contempt sentences.
A Southern Conference Educational Fund release dated May 7, 1970 identifies Davis Bress as special government prosecutor in the separate contempt-of-Congress prosecution. It names defense attorneys Morton Stavis and Nancy Stearns and reports their effort to question Senator John McClellan about access to the papers seized in Kentucky. The release reports that Bress acknowledged officials would admit the papers had been seen illegally, and that Judge John L. Smith denied a dismissal request and set a future trial date. These statements are attributed to SCEF’s contemporary release; they do not establish new actual custody or alter the distinct 1967 sedition case. The announced trial date is a schedule, not proof of an executed hearing.
