3 Men To Be Sentenced For Racial Crimes In Arkansas

(AP) - Three men who pleaded guilty to racial crimes in Arkansas are due in federal court in central Arkansas for sentencing.

James Branscum and Curtis Coffee each pleaded guilty last year to a federal civil rights charge after prosecutors say they burned a cross at a black man's home near Batesville.

They're set to go before a federal judge in Little Rock on Friday, as is Jason Barnwell, who pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges after prosecutors say he and a few other men firebombed an interracial couple's home near Hardy in a separate incident last year.

The couple wasn't injured, but drapes and blinds caught fire inside the home.