Story highlights In January 1985, three people were indicted by a grand jury for allegedly altering absentee ballots

A jury deliberated about four hours and found all three of the accused not guilty

Marion, Alabama (CNN) Evelyn Turner says she still has nightmares about what happened in this small Alabama city more than three decades ago. And it involves President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

The year was 1985 and Sessions, then a US attorney, prosecuted an infamous voter fraud case that captured the nation's attention, and had civil rights leaders rallying behind the accused. Known as the "Marion Three," Turner, her husband Albert, and Spencer Hogue Jr. faced dozens of charges that their attorneys said were racially motivated. Session's office disputed that, then and now.

Today, at 80 years old, Turner doesn't hold back her feelings.

"I hate him just that bad," she told CNN. "And he shouldn't be up for anything, not even a dog catcher."

Albert Turner Sr. was a civil rights activist who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. He was King's field director in Alabama, and began building political power in the black community in Perry County, Alabama, where he formed the Perry County Civic League at a time when segregation was the norm. Evelyn Turner said her husband was devoted to registering blacks to vote, getting more political representation for minorities, more services, and she says, he frequently ran into opposition from the politicians who were used to having Perry County run by their own rules.

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