Her book focused on a single black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman of questionable character. Although rape was potentially a capital offense in Alabama, the defendants at this point were not allowed to consult an attorney. "[118] The prosecution's closing argument was shorter and less "barbed" than it had been in the Patterson case. Nor would he allow Leibowitz to ask why she went to Chattanooga, where she had spent the night there, or about Carter or Gilley. Leibowitz showed the justices that the names of African Americans had been added to the jury rolls. The case marked the first stirrings of the civil rights movement and led to two landmark Supreme Court rulings that established important rights for criminal defendants. justice systems, and stereotyping) or parallels of liberatory struggle (such as the Mothers of the Movement and/or movements like #SayHerName or Black Lives Matter) are not perfect. The alleged rape victims in the Scottsboro case were Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. SCOTTSBORO, Ala. (WAFF) - A Scottsboro woman is fighting for her life after being shot on Monday night. The nine boys entered into an altercation with some white youths as they were on the freight train passing through Alabama, on the night of 25 March 1931. [17] The judge persuaded Stephen Roddy, a Chattanooga, Tennessee, real estate lawyer, to assist him. We did a lot of awful things over there in Scottsboro, didn't we? The state dropped the rape charges as part of this plea bargain.[6]. This time, in Norris v. Alabama, the court overturned the convictions on the grounds that the prosecution intentionally eliminated black prospects from the jury. "[107] For his summation, solicitor Wade Wright reviewed the testimony and warned the jury, "that this crime could have happened to any woman, even though she was riding in a parlor car, instead of the boxcar."[103]. The cases were twice appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which led to landmark decisions on the conduct of trials. "[9] The posse arrested all black passengers on the train for assault.[10]. Knight thundered, "Who told you to say that?" When the train stopped at Scottsboro. Within a month, one man was found guilty and sentenced . Police concluded that four people found shot and killed in an Ohio home were victims of a murder-suicide incident just moments before the family was to be evicted. The Scottsboro Boys were accused of rapes that in all likelihood never even happened . 8. [43], Judge Hawkins set the executions for July 10, 1931, the earliest date Alabama law allowed. The case of Leroy Wright ended with a hung jury when some jurors thought that a life sentence would be more appropriate, considerng his youth, than execution. They were put on trial and convicted, despite a lack of evidence, and eight of them were sentenced to death. Attorney General Knight warned Price to "keep your temper. Andrew Wright, when freed in 1943, fled Alabama and was taken back to prison, where he remained until May 1950. April 6 - 7: Clarence Norris and Charlie Weems, were placed on trial, convicted and given the death sentence. Nine young Black men and four whytes were taken into custody. "The trial was held in Scottsboro just two weeks after the arrests, and an all-white jury quickly recommended the death penalty for eight of the nine boys, all except 13-year-old Leroy Wright" (Paragraph 5). The case was first returned to the lower court and the judge allowed a change of venue, moving the retrials to Decatur, Alabama. Haywood Patterson's Decatur retrial began on November 27, 1933. The cases were tried and appealed in Alabama and twice argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. [102], The prosecution called several white farmers who testified that they had seen the fight on the train and saw the girls "a-fixin' to get out", but they saw the defendants drag them back. The fight is said to have started when a young white man stepped on the hand of one of the Scottsboro Boys. The Scottsboro Nines case, however, became a moment showing that despite their status as outsiders, black Americans could carry their calls for justice across the nation and around the globe. After this initial verdict, protests emerged in the north, leading to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the convictions in 1932, in Powell v. State of Alabama. were the scottsboro 9 killed. Scottsboro Trials. She said none of the defendants had touched her or even spoken to her. The defense team argued that their clients had not had adequate representation, had insufficient time for counsel to prepare their cases, had their juries intimidated by the crowd, and finally, that it was unconstitutional for blacks to have been excluded from the jury. Did Ory Dobbins frame them? 2023 Smithsonian Magazine The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. ), Leibowitz called local black professionals as witnesses to show they were qualified for jury service. Price testified again that a dozen armed negro men entered the gondola car. After 14 hours of deliberation, the jury filed into the courtroom; they returned a guilty verdict and sentenced Norris to death. He was reported to have died in Atlanta in 1974. Callahan denied the motion. He said that he had not seen "any white women" until the train "got to Paint Rock. Leibowitz recognized that he was viewed by Southerners as an outsider, and allowed the local attorney Charles Watts to be the lead attorney; he assisted from the sidelines. He set the retrials for January 20, 1936. Today, the Scottsboro Boys have finally received justice.[5]. In an additional series of trials, all-white juries reached more guilty verdicts and again issued death sentences. How does the quoted sentence contribute to the development of ideas in the text? He had testified in the first Decatur trial that Price and Bates had had sex with him and Gilley in the hobo jungle in Chattanooga prior to the alleged rapes, which could account for the semen found in the women. Alabama is going to observe the supreme law of America. The only drama came when Knight pulled a torn pair of step-ins from his briefcase and tossed them into the lap of a juror to support the claim of rape. Roddy admitted he had not had time to prepare and was not familiar with Alabama law, but agreed to aid Moody. April 7 - 8: Haywood Patterson meets the same sentence as Norris and Weems. The case inspired Harper Lee, who wrote the best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird published in 1960. [120], The case went to the United States Supreme Court for a second time as Norris v. Alabama. The case has also been explored in many works of literature, music, theatre, film and television. April 8-9: Olen Montgomery, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Eugene Williams and Andy Wright are tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Private investigations took place, revealing that Price and Bates had been prostitutes in Tennessee, who regularly serviced both black and white clientele. The following is what happened to each of the nine Scottsboro Boys after 1935: Haywood Patterson was convicted of rape for the fourth time in 1936 and sentenced to 75 years in prison. [75], Train fireman Percy Ricks testified that he saw the two women slipping along the side of the train right after it stopped in Paint Rock, as if they were trying to escape the posse. In December of that year, he was arrested after a fight in a bar resulted in a stabbing death. Important also is that we can find the seeds of inspiration, and strategies for liberation or racial justice, in that past as well., Alice George [2], With help from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the case was appealed. Chamlee was joined by Communist Party attorney Joseph Brodsky and ILD attorney Irving Schwab. The case was first heard in Scottsboro, Alabama, in three rushed trials, in which the defendants received poor legal representation. He testified that he had been on the train on the morning of the arrests. The first jury deliberated less than two hours before returning a guilty verdict and imposed the death sentence on both Weems and Norris. "[3] This conclusion did not find the Scottsboro defendants innocent but ruled that the procedures violated their rights to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. He walked through the mob and the crowd parted to let him through; Wann was not touched by anyone. Put on your case. The trials consumed just four days. Price's case was initially dismissed but she appealed. Scottsboro Boy was published in June 1950. . Powell also achieved freedom in 1946. Horton ruled the rest of defendants could not get a fair trial at that time and indefinitely postponed the rest of the trials, knowing it would cost him his job when he ran for re-election. The judge granted Roy Wright, the youngest of the group, a mistrial because of agedespite the recommendation of the all-white jury. The vote against him was especially heavy in Morgan County. [43], The eight convicted defendants were assembled on April 9, 1931, and sentenced to death by electric chair. The New York Times described Leibowitz as "pressing the judge almost as though he were a hostile witness. As to the "newly discovered evidence", the Court ruled: "There is no contention on the part of the defendants, that they had sexual intercourse with the alleged victim with her consent so the defendants would not be granted a new trial."[53]. All the jurors agreed on his guilt, but seven insisted on the death sentence while five held out for life imprisonment (in cases like this, that was often an indication that the jurors believed the suspect was innocent but they were unwilling to go against community norms of conviction). They said the problem was with the way Judge Hawkins "immediately hurried to trial. The Birmingham News described him as "dressed up like a Georgia gigolo. This Feb. 10, 2010 photo taken in Scottsboro, Ala., shows the Jackson County (Ala.) Sentinel from April 2, 1931, when nine young black men called ``The Scottsboro Boys'' were arrested on charges of raping two white women. The judge and prosecutor wanted to speed the nine trials to avoid violence, so the first trial took a day and a half, and the rest took place one right after the other, in just one day. This trial began within minutes of the previous case. Nor was she the first witness who tried to stare him down and, failing that, who seemed as if she were about to leap out of her seat and strike him. Get Your Property Rented . [133] It is located in the former Joyce Chapel United Methodist Church and is devoted to exploring the case and commemorating the search for justice for its victims. Nevertheless, the judge carried a loaded pistol in his car throughout the time he presided over these cases.[59]. [21][22] Local circuit judge Alfred E. Hawkins[23] found that the crowd was curious and not hostile. On March 25, 1931, nine young African Americans were falsely charged with rape. Clarence Norris, the oldest defendant and the only one sentenced to death in the final trial, "jumped parole" in 1946 and went into hiding. [25], Dr. Bridges testified that his examination of Victoria Price found no vaginal tearing (which would have indicated rape) and that she had had semen in her for several hours. [14][15] He took the defendants to the county seat of Gadsden, Alabama, for indictment and to await trial. [114], Dr. Bridges was a state witness, and Leibowitz cross-examined him at length, trying to get him to agree that a rape would have produced more injuries than he found. [5], On March 25, 1931, the Southern Railway line between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee, had nine black youths who were riding on a freight train with several white males and two white women. His son, Sonny, later recalled him as saying: "Those young men were innocent; everybody knew that but they were going to be punished for what they didn't do." When she responded that the Communist Party had paid for her clothes, any credibility she had with the jury was destroyed. When different organizations vied for the right to represent the interests of the Scottsboro Nine, African American men and women utilized them and attempted to shape those organizations to meet their needs, he says. Judge Callahan did not rule that excluding people by race was constitutional, only that the defendant had not proven that African-Americans had been deliberately excluded. The remaining "Scottsboro Boys" in custody, that of Norris, A Wright and Weems were at this time in Kilby Prison. [24], Clarence Norris and Charlie Weems were tried after Haywood Patterson. Ruby Bates took the stand, identifying all five defendants as among the 12 entering the gondola car, putting off the whites, and "ravishing" her and Price. Callahan would not allow Leibowitz to ask Price about any "crime of moral turpitude." Governor Graves had planned to pardon the prisoners in 1938 but was angered by their hostility and refusal to admit their guilt. The defense attorney showed that "Mr. Sanford" was evidently qualified in all manner except by virtue of his race to be a candidate for participation in a jury. Thinking Patterson would be acquitted, Judge Horton did not force Dr. Lynch to testify, but the judge had become convinced the defendants were innocent. National Museum of African American History and Culture. For the last time now, stand back, take your finger out of his eye, and call him mister", causing gasps from the public seated in the gallery. What happened in the case would create an enduring legacy. Not until the first day of the trial were the defendants provided with the services of two volunteer lawyers. Seven months after the Alabama House of Representatives voted unanimously in favor of creating legislation to posthumously pardon nine black teens who were wrongfully convicted of raping two white women in 1931, this morning the Alabama parole board approved posthumous pardons for three of the men known collectively as the Scottsboro Boys. The foreman unfisted a moist crumpled note, handed it to the clerk. Crews were called to the park around 12:30 a.m. Once he sent out the jury and warned the courtroom, "I want it to be known that these prisoners are under the protection of this court. Governor Robert J. Bentley said to the press that day: While we could not take back what happened to the Scottsboro Boys 80 years ago, we found a way to make it right moving forward. Ozie Powell said that while he was not a participant, he had seen the fight with the white teenagers from his vantage point between a boxcar and a gondola car, where he had been hanging on. [citation needed], Defendant Clarence Norris stunned the courtroom by implicating the other defendants. So, the Communist Party attorneys came to aid the defendants first.[46]. On July 22, 1937, Andrew Wright was convicted of rape and sentenced to 99 years. "They weren't there to kill Al - they were there to kill the police," she said. He claimed also to have been on top of the boxcar, and that Clarence Norris had a knife. [41] Slim Gilley testified that he saw "every one of those five in the gondola,"[42] but did not confirm that he had seen the women raped. [86] "There ain't going to be no more picture snappin' round here", he ordered. It ruled that African Americans had to be included on juries, and ordered retrials. He walked across the street to the courthouse where he telephoned Governor Benjamin M. Miller, who mobilized the Alabama Army National Guard to protect the jail. A crowd of thousands soon formed. On July 24, 1937, Charlie Weems was convicted of rape and sentenced to 105 years in prison. When asked if she had been raped on March 25, 1931, Bates said, "No sir." Nine were convicted of third degree murder and conspiracy, always maintaining the officer was killed by friendly fire. [116], Closing arguments were on December 4, 1933. "[102], Patterson claimed the threats had been made by guards and militiamen while the defendants were in the Jackson County jail. [16] Courthouse access required a permit due to the salacious nature of the testimony expected. . 16pf scoring and interpretation On cross-examination, Bridges testified detecting no movement in the spermatozoa found in either woman, suggesting intercourse had taken place sometime before. The case was first heard in Scottsboro, Alabama in three rushed trials, where the defendants received poor legal representation. During prosecution testimony, Victoria Price stated that she and Ruby Bates witnessed the fight, that one of the black men had a gun, and that they all raped her at knifepoint. [66] When asked if the model in front of her was like the train where she claimed she was raped, Price cracked, "It was bigger. When the US Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in 1977, Price disregarded the advice of her lawyer and accepted a settlement from NBC. [92] The prosecution countered with testimony that some of the quotes in the affidavits were untrue and that six of the people quoted were dead. During cross-examination by Roddy, Price livened her testimony with wisecracks that brought roars of laughter. He said that he had seen both Price and Bates get on a train there with a white man on the morning of the alleged rape. The Scottsboro Boys By Jessica McBirney 2017 The trial of the Scottsboro Boys was a historic event in which nine black youths were wrongfully accused and convicted for a crime they didn't commit. Andy Wright, Eugene Williams, and Haywood Patterson testified that they had previously known each other, but had not seen the women until the train stopped in Paint Rock. Enraged, they conjured a story of how the black men were at fault for the incident. The Supreme Court demanded a retrial on the grounds that the young men did not have adequate legal representation. He said threats were made even in the presence of the judge. "[55], He pointed out that the National Guard had shuttled the defendants back and forth each day from jail, and that, this fact alone was enough to have a coercive effect on the jury. Scottsboro Boys On 25th March, 1931, Victoria Price (21) and Ruby Bates (17) claimed they were gang-raped by 12 black men on a Memphis bound train. [17] As the Supreme Court later described this situation, "the proceedings took place in an atmosphere of tense, hostile, and excited public sentiment. The issue of the composition of the jury was addressed in a second landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that race could not be used to exclude anyone from candidacy for participation on a jury anywhere in the United States. [26] The prosecution ended with testimony from three men who claimed the black youths fought the white youths, put them off the train, and "took charge" of the white girls. "[81], Leibowitz objected and moved for a new trial. | READ MORE. I want you to know that. Leibowitz asked her whether she had spent the evening in a "hobo jungle" in Huntsville, Alabama, with a Lester Carter and Jack Tiller, but she denied it. Neither would he allow questions as to whether she'd had sexual intercourse with Carter or Gilley. He did so within the next year, and reportedly died in Alabama in 1975. [93] The defense countered that they had received numerous death threats, and the judge replied that he and the prosecution had received more from the Communists. When Judge Horton announced his decision, Knight stated that he would retry Patterson. [52], The Court upheld the lower court's change of venue decision, upheld the testimony of Ruby Bates, and reviewed the testimony of the various witnesses. [116] She said that there were white teenagers riding in the gondola car with them, that some black teenagers came into the car, that a fight broke out, that most of the white teenagers got off the train, and that the blacks "disappeared" until the posse stopped the train at Paint Rock.