Three young men pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes charges in connection with the death of an African-American man in Mississippi.

Deryl Dedmon, 19; John A. Rice, 18; and Dylan Butler, 20, admitted to a pattern of going into Jackson to find African-American people to assault. They threw beer bottles and used a slingshot to shoot marbles at people, according to federal prosecutors, starting in April 2011.

They continued the pattern until June of that year, when they admitted that they attacked and beat James Craig Anderson, 47. Dedmon ran over Anderson with his truck, leading to Anderson's death.

The men were charged under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first time the law was used in the Deep South. The law was applied for the first time in the U.S. for the beating of a Navajo Nation man in New Mexico.

Get the Story:
Three Plead Guilty to Hate Crimes in Killing of Black Man in Mississippi (The New York Times 3/23)
3 involved in beating and fatal rundown plead guilty to federal hate crime charges in Miss. (AP 3/22)

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