While the enforcement of such statutes "in some cases deprives society of its ability to prosecute criminal offenses, that is the price we pay for repose," wrote Judge Harold DeMoss Jr.

A U.S. District Court jury convicted Seale last year over his alleged involvement in the May 2, 1964, abduction and killings of two African-American teenagers, Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, from Franklin County.

Klansmen beat the 19-year-olds before loading them into a car, transporting them to the Mississippi River, binding and gagging them and throwing them into the river, where they drowned.

Two months later, authorities found their bodies, but no one was prosecuted in the case until the arrest of Seale.

Seale was given three life sentences by U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate.

On Tuesday night, Seale's wife, Jenny, welcomed the news about her husband.

"Oh, man, yes, he's coming home," she said. "I've prayed and prayed. Now you can get the man who's really guilty."

She didn't say whom she was referring to before hanging up.

George Lucas of Jackson, senior litigator for the federal public defender's office, said the defense will immediately seek an appeal bond for Seale, 72, now in prison in Marion, Ill.

He continues to suffer from cancer, kidney problems and other physical ailments, Lucas said. "His physical condition has not improved any since being incarcerated."

He called the 5th Circuit's ruling "a very well-reasoned decision."

Assistant Public Defender Kathy Nester argued the appeal before the three-judge panel, which concluded the defense's analysis of the statute of limitations was correct.

U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton of Jackson said he was disappointed in the decision.

"We spent a great deal of time and effort in this case," he said. "They were just brutal murders. The court didn't reverse it on the facts. They reversed it on a technicality."

The three-judge panel seemed to acknowledge that when it said: "While we are mindful of the seriousness of the crimes at issue, we cannot abdicate our duty to faithfully apply a valid limitations period."

Lampton said he's going to discuss the matter with Paige Fitzgerald, a lawyer from the Justice Department who helped prosecute the case, to determine if prosecutors will ask the entire 5th Circuit to review Tuesday's decision.

Seale's June 14, 2007, conviction ended the journey of Moore's brother, Thomas, in seeking justice in the case. Working together with David Ridgen of the Canadian Broadcasting Co., they pieced together information and clues that helped lead to Seale's arrest.

"It's a shock, but there's nothing I can do," said Thomas Moore. "The truth was told, and the law is the law."

Those on the 5th Circuit are unaware how much he worked, he said, "to get truth and justice in this case."

When Seale was arrested in January 2007, "I rested my case on what I tried to do," he said. "I also found out the other people involved in the murders of Charles Moore and Henry Dee - Curtis Dunn, Jack Seale, Clyde Seale, Archie Prather, Ernest Parker, Charles Marcus Edwards and James Ford Seale."

All but Seale and Edwards have died, he said. Edwards, who was given immunity, testified he saw Seale pick up the teens in his car and hold a gun on them while they were beaten.

Family members who saw the killings of their loved ones go unpunished must decide if they're looking for justice, Thomas Moore said. "Or are we just looking for closure?"

The June 2007 trial revealed the truth of what happened that fateful day, he said. Nothing, he said, not even Tuesday's decision, "can take that away."

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