Three were found guilty but their convictions were overturned. Appeal to the Supreme Court resulted in a death blow to the legal basis and dwindling powers of Reconstruction. Justices ruled that enforcement of civil and voting rights, in cases of individual or mob action like Colfax, was a state rather than a federal matter. This effectively stripped blacks of protection against terror.
This pattern of whites murdering blacks then gettin acquitted in trials continued well into the 20th Century.
