Scottsborough trial

For their part, Alabama officials defended the verdicts and wanted no interference by either outside organization in what they considered a local affair. The ILD pursued the case through the conventional legal channels of state and federal courts of appeal. However, it did not believe that justice could be secured through litigation alone. As a result, the group mounted a relentless media campaign, sponsoring rallies, parades, and nationwide speaking tours designed to raise money for the defense and to expose the gross inequities in the Alabama justice system to the court of public opinion.

ILD publicity efforts transformed the case from a local matter into an international spectacle. The group then turned to the U. Supreme Court, which in November overrode the Alabama decisions and granted new trials to all of the defendants. In the process, Powell v. Alabama , as the Supreme Court's ruling was labeled, established a key precedent for enforcing African Americans' right to adequate counsel under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Scottsboro Trial At the state and circuit court levels however, the legal campaign to free the Scottsboro defendants met with repeated frustration and disappointment despite overwhelming evidence of the defendants' innocence.

The most persuasive evidence came from one of the accusers herself, Ruby Bates. In the break between the first set of trials and lead defendant Haywood Patterson's second trial, which began in March , Bates recanted her story and agreed to testify for the defense, admitting that Price concocted the story to avoid charges for vagrancy and crossing state lines for "immoral purposes" in violation of the Mann Act.

She later marched in protests and spoke at rallies for the accused. In addition, Samuel Liebowitz, the ILD's non-Communist lead attorney, found numerous inconsistencies in Price's testimony and highlighted the medical examinations of Price and Bates, which refuted the pair's charge of rape.

But once more the jury returned a guilty verdict and recommended the death penalty. Then, in an act of incredible courage, Judge James Horton overrode the jury's verdict.

Horton had carefully reviewed the evidence and met privately with one of the medical examiners, who told him he thought the girls were lying.

Lawyers for the state, however, continued to pursue the case, this time under a judge sympathetic to the prosecution. In December , Haywood Patterson and Clarence Norris were convicted of rape and sentenced to death for a third time by another all-white jury. Five other defendants remained in prison, awaiting new trials, while the remaining two were removed to juvenile court and later convicted.

Scottsboro Defendants Following this latest round of guilty verdicts, ILD attorneys attempted to bribe Victoria Price in a foolish act of desperation. When the bribe came to light, Liebowitz, whose relationship with the ILD was always tenuous, severed ties with the group and established his own rival defense organization, the American Scottsboro Committee ASC.

Meanwhile, the bickering defense organizations worked out a rapprochement. The first retrial, under Judge Callahan, was set for January This time, twelve Black people were included in the jury pool of All were challenged by the state and removed. The trials again took place before all-white juries. Again, the boys were found guilty. Over the next several years, the Defense Committee repeatedly went to court, launched public campaigns, and sought pardons for their clients.

In July , they finally got a break. In a prepared statement, the prosecutor pronounced Roberson and Montgomery innocent.

Williams and Wright were shown clemency, he explained, because they were juveniles at the time of the alleged crime. The state also pronounced Ozie Powell innocent, but he remained in prison — under a year sentence — for attacking a guard. In this July 26, file photo, police escort two of the five recently freed "Scottsboro Boys," Olen Montgomery, wearing glasses, third left, and Eugene Williams, wearing suspenders, forth left through the crowd greeting them upon their arrival at Penn Station in New York.

The Defense Committee appealed to Gov. Bibb Graves to free their clients who remained in prison, arguing that some could not be innocent and the rest guilty. On October 25, , Alabama Gov. Norris, then 64, had spent 15 years behind bars, five of those on death row. At an event that December, Norris was asked how he would change things if he could relive his life. In , after the legislature passed a law permitting posthumous pardons, they received full and unconditional pardons. The book was published by The New Press in July and is now available.

Reprinted here with permission. State of Alabama. The Supreme Court demanded a retrial on the grounds that the young men did not have adequate legal representation.

A series of retrials and reconvictions followed and the Scottsboro Boys collectively served more than years in prison. Subsequently, the national conversation and protests of unfair and unequal court proceedings led to two additional groundbreaking Supreme Court decisions in on jury diversification: Patterson v. State of Alabama and Norris v. The ruling meant the trials violated the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee to equal protection under the law.

The following excerpt reports on Patterson's fourth trial held in January The presiding judge was William W. Attorneys prosecuting Patterson were Melvin C. Protestors of the Scottsboro verdict march in Washington, D. After the nine black youths were falsely charged and convicted of rape, many demonstrated asking for the boys' freedom.

Knight Jr. Defending Patterson were Leibowitz and C. Watts was an Alabama lawyer brought into the Scottsboro case by Leibowitz. The jury again consisted of only whites, in this case twelve white farmers. The Supreme Court decision of Norris v. Alabama was dealt with by having five blacks in the pool from which the jury was selected. All five, however, were eliminated by the prosecution. The defense charged numerous times during the two-day trial that Judge Callahan was impatient and acted annoyed by the defense.

His comments repeatedly suggested the defense attorneys were wasting everyone's time. The defense moved several times for a mistrial since this conduct influenced the jurors against the defense. Judge Callahan denied all motions for a mistrial.