James Edwin Coyle (March 23, 1873 – August 11, 1921) was a Catholic priest who was murdered in Birmingham, Alabama by a Ku Klux Klan member for performing an interracial marriage. Biography James Coyle was born in Drum, County Roscommon, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, now modern day Ireland, to Owen Coyle and his wife Margaret Durney. He attended Mungret College in Limerick and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, and was ordained a priest at age 23 on May 30, 1896. Later that year, he sailed with another priest, Father Michael Henry, to Mobile, Alabama, and served under Bishop Edward Patrick Allen. He became an instructor, and later rector, of the McGill Institute for Boys. In 1904 Bishop Allen appointed Coyle to succeed Patrick O'Reilly as pastor of St. Paul's Church (later Cathedral) in Birmingham, where he was well received and loved by the congregation. Father Coyle was the Knights of Columbus chaplain of Birmingham, Alabama Council 635. Murder On August 11, 1921, Father Coyle was shot in the head on the porch of St. Paul's Rectory by E. R. Stephenson, a Southern Methodist Episcopal minister and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. There were many witnesses. The murder occurred just hours after Coyle had performed a secret wedding between Stephenson's daughter, Ruth, and Pedro Gussman, a Puerto Rican whom she had met while he was working at Stephenson's house five years earlier. Gussman had also been a customer at Stephenson's barber shop. Several months before the wedding, Ruth had converted to Catholicism. Father Coyle was buried in Birmingham's Elmwood Cemetery. Trial and aftermath Stephenson was charged with Father Coyle's murder. The Ku Klux Klan paid for the defense; of the five lawyers, four were Klan members. The case was assigned to the Alabama courtroom of Judge William E. Fort, a Klansman. Hugo Black, a future Justice of the Supreme Court and a future Klansman, was also one of the defense attorneys. The Birmingham News called it the biggest trial in Alabama history. The defense team took the unusual step of entering a dual plea of "not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity", essentially arguing that the shooting was in self-defense, and arguing that at the time of the shooting, Stephenson was suffering from "temporary insanity". Stephenson was acquitted by one juror's vote. One of Stephenson's attorneys responded to the prosecution's assertion that