E. R. Stephenson

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Reverend E. R. Stephenson was a minister of the now extinct Methodist Episcopal Church, South and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He shot and killed Catholic priest James Coyle in 1921 in Alabama, but was acquitted of the murder. His main lawyer was Hugo Black.

E. R. Stephenson was incensed when his daughter became a Catholic. A known gun carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan, he could no longer restrain himself when his daughter married a Catholic of Puerto Rican ancestry in a ceremony performed by Father James Coyle. On the evening of August 11, 1921, the crazed preacher shot and killed the priest on the porch of St. Paul's rectory.

During the murder trial the defense admitted Stephenson's guilt, though technically claiming "temporary insanity." It was not that he had committed the murder, but that he had a right to do so.