Camden Trial Testimony Continues In Slaying

Camden Courier-Post, May 13, 1971

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Camden Trial Testimony Continues In Slaying Testimony continued today in the murder trial of a Camden man charged in the shotgun slaying of James J. Nichols, 617 Royden St., last September. Clarence Shields, 39, of the 1500 block Wildwood Avenue, surrendered to police several hours after the shooting of Nichols during an argument at 4th and Mechanic Streets. Nichols, an employe of Campbell Soup Co., was dead on arrival at Cooper Hospital. Assistant Prosecutor E. Allen Nickerson has asked the jury for a life sentence in the case, which is being heard by County Court Judge William A. Pascoe. Shields is the father of a family relocated from their North Camden home by city urban development action during the racially tense summer of 1968. Charges made at that time against official efforts to find a home for the family led to a six-month grand jury investigation of disorders within the city government. The jury found that the family had been used by the Black People's Unity Movement to test the city's relocation program.

Testimony continued today in the murder trial of a Camden man charged in the shotgun slaying of James J. Nichols, 617 Royden St., last September.

Clarence Shields, 39, of the 1500 block Wildwood Avenue, surrendered to police several hours after the shooting of Nichols during an argument at 4th and Mechanic Streets.

Nichols, an employe of Campbell Soup Co., was dead on arrival at Cooper Hospital.

Assistant Prosecutor E. Allen Nickerson has asked the jury for a life sentence in the case, which is being heard by County Court Judge William A. Pascoe.

Shields is the father of a family relocated from their North Camden home by city urban development action during the racially tense summer of 1968.

Charges made at that time against official efforts to find a home for the family led to a six-month grand jury investigation of disorders within the city government.

The jury found that the family had been used by the Black People's Unity Movement to test the city's relocation program.