Their first trial was conducted in four days with an all-white jury where all of the Scottsboro boys were convicted and eight of them received the death penalty. The boys' lawyers were also very incompetent and unable to effectively to take on such a case. The only one of the boys who did not receive the death sentence was Leroy Wright, a 13-year-old. The Internal Labor Defense (ILD) eventually interfered, which led to the boys receiving a stay of execution and a pending appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court. The ILD was the legal sector of the American Communist party and conducted protests demonstrations involving both Communists and Anti-Communists as part of a campaign to free the nine boys. This proved ineffective and in March of 1932, the Alabama Supreme Court left seven of the convictions unchanged as Eugene Williams was given a retrial since he was a minor at the time when he was convicted and Leroy Wright's trial was declared a mistrial also due to his age. 
In the November 1932 case of Powell v. Alabama, the Supreme Court overturned its rulings and addressed how the boys were provided with an incompetent counsel and were denied a fair trial, all of which resulted in a violation of their 14th Amendment rights. This was the first time that the Court ordered new trials as a result of violating criminal procedure. During one of the retrials, Ruby Bates, one of the women who initially accused the boys of rape, came forward to testify that the rape had never occurred. The Court reacted by rejecting her credibility since they believed her testimony was bought by the Communist Party. The individual trials continued a pattern of the Alabama Supreme Court conducting unfair trials where the Supreme Court had to intervene due to violation of the 14th Amendment right to due process. In the end, Norris received the death penalty at his trial, Ozzie Powell received 20 years in prison but was shot dead by a guard after assaulting him as a result of a mental illness he developed, Charlie Weems got 75 years, Andry Wright received 99 years, and the remaining four boys were freed.
The men who were freed went on to live miserably as they were permanently damaged by conviction after conviction. Haywood Patterson, who escaped the prison and never returned, ended up working with Earl Conrad, the author of Jim Crow America, to write his personal account of the case in Scottsboro Boy, which left officials in Alabama furious. In 1937, the rape charges were lifted from five of the boys and 80 years after the ruling, three of the Scottsboro Boys were pardoned by the Alabama legislature. This series of landmark cases carry a heavy legacy through introducing the question of the inclusion of blacks in a jury and a need for sufficient legal representation in trial. Although the pardons are symbolically important, the nine black men were still forced to face awful discrimination in court. As a result of being such a significant case, Harper Lee allegedly drew on it while forming the plot for To Kill a Mockingbird and the case has inspired a series of films, documentaries, as well as even a Broadway show to increase awareness of these horrible injustices perpetrated by American courts.
history.com/topics/great-depression/scottsboro-boys
This post was a really well-written account of such a dark moment in US history. One part that I wanted to learn more about was the denial of Ruby Bate's testimony on the basis that she was being manipulated by Communists. Upon further research, I learned that after the initial trial, it was discovered that Bates wrote a letter to her then boyfriend stating that she was not raped by the Scottsboro boys. Then, during Haywood Patterson's retrial, she was used as a surprise witness where she testified that she was not raped. However, the prosecutor pretty much tore her testimony apart whilst insinuating heavily that she was being influenced by the Communist party. I think it is interesting to see how the intersection of multiple prejudices (racial, political) contributed to the failure of a fair trail.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/scottsboro-ruby-bates-and-victoria-price/
https://famous-trials.com/scottsboroboys/1550-bates
Your post was really in depth and provided lots of information about all aspects of this situation. It's interesting how seemingly simple it was for people to push blame towards segregated people at this time. Supposedly, in all of American history, no crime that never actually occurred caused so many trials, convictions, reversals, etc. This gives a window into what living as an African American in this era of U.S. history was like, and it really puts our history in perspective.
ReplyDeletehttp://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/Ftrials/scottsboro/SB_acct.html