The case of the Scottsboro Boys arose in Scottsboro, Alabama during the 1930s, when nine black youths, ranging in age from twelve^[1] to nineteen, were falsely accused of raping two white women, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. Although repeatedly found guilty and sentenced to death by all-white southern juries, the case garnered international attention and eventually all the men went free, the last over 20 years from the initial incident. Scottsboro is a city in Jackson County, Alabama, and is included in the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ... The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known as the [[. In East Asia, the rise of militarism occurred. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

The Incident

The nine (Haywood Patterson, Clarence Norris, Andy Wright, Roy Wright, Willie Roberson, Charles Weems, Ozie Powell, Olen Montgomery, and Eugene Williams) were accused of the rapes of two white women, which was alleged to have occurred on March 25, 1931, on the Southern Railroad freight run from Chattanooga to Memphis. On the train that day, catching an illegal (but common) ride on the freight train were the nine black youths, two white women, and a number of white youths. A fight occurred between the white youths and the black youths, resulting in most of the white youths being ejected from the train by the black youths. Several of the white youths then told the nearest stationmaster that they had had a fight with a gang of black youths. The stationmaster at the next stop, Paint Rock, Alabama, prepared for their arrival, and a posse of white men armed with guns grabbed all black youths they could find on the train and took them to jail in Scottsboro. Paint Rock is a town in Jackson County, Alabama, along the Paint Rock River, and is included in the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. ...

Two women on the train, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, then claimed they had been raped by several of the black youths (Bates would later recant). Word quickly spread and a lynch mob gathered, prepared to storm the jail and kill the youths. Given the situation, the governor of Alabama, Benjamin M. Miller, was forced to call in the National Guard to protect the jail. Authorities pleaded against mob violence by promising speedy trials and executions. Manifestations Slavery Racial profiling Lynching Hate speech Hate crime Genocide (examples) Ethnocide Ethnic cleansing Pogrom Race war Religious persecution Gay bashing Blood libel Paternalism Police brutality Movements Policies Discriminatory Race / Religion / Sex segregation Apartheid Redlining Internment Anti-discriminatory Emancipation Civil rights Desegregation Integration Equal opportunity Counter-discriminatory Affirmative action Racial... Benjamin Meek(s?) Miller (March 13, 1864–February 6, 1944) was an American Democratic politician Born in Oak Hill, Wilcox County, he was Associate justice of Alabama state supreme court, from 1921 to 1927. ... The United States National Guard is a reserve forces component of the United States Army (the Army National Guard) and the United States Air Force (the Air National Guard). ...

The First Round of Trials

On March 30, the so-called Scottsboro Boys were indicted by an all-white jury, and the trial began several days later. The boys were defended by the only lawyers the parents could afford: a drunk real estate lawyer, Stephen Roddy, and Milo Moody, an aged lawyer who had not defended a case at trial in decades. The boys were divided into several groups, each of which was to be tried separately. Six of the boys denied the charges, two confessed (but later recanted, saying they had been beaten into confessing), and one claimed that all of the others were guilty. In April, all were convicted and sentenced to death, except for 13 year old Roy Wright. The prosecution had asked for life in prison for Wright due to his age, but the jury voted for execution, causing a mistrial to be declared for him. is the 89th day of the year (90th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... An all-white jury is an American political term used to describe a jury in a criminal trial, or grand jury investigation, composed only of Caucasians, with an expectation that the deliberations may not be fair and unbiased. ...

Private investigations took place, and revealed that Price and Bates had been prostitutes in Tennessee. Hearing this the southern newspapers used it for slander, and asked for an appeal for the court. The court denied it, and because of all the pressure from the media, Bates disappeared.

In this second trial, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld the convictions of seven of the eight boys who were on death row, in an opinion written by Judge Thomas Knight, Sr. The tenth defendant, Eugene Williams, had his sentence overturned on the grounds that he, at age 13, should not have been tried as an adult. The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the state of Alabama. ...

Supreme Court of the U.S.

In November of that year, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Powell v. Alabama, reversed the convictions and ordered new trials based on the fact that the rights of the Boys under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause to competent legal counsel had been denied by Alabama. Holding Defendants conviction was unconstitutional because they were denied the assistance of counsel from the time of their arraignment until the beginning of their trial, in violation of the 14th Amendments Due Process Clause. ...

The Second Round of Trials

The second round of trials was held beginning in March 1933, with the Boys in prison during the interim. Haywood Patterson's trial was the first of the retrials, as this time, each defendant was to be tried separately. The ILD hired Samuel Leibowitz, a noted attorney from New York (with no connection to the Communist Party) who was widely known for never losing a murder trial, to defend the Scottsboro Boys at the new trials, held in nearby Decatur. IDL attorney Joseph Brodsky was selected to assist him. This selection would backfire on the boys as the whites from the south viewed Leibowitz and Brodsky as foreigners, northerner, communists, and Jews. Particularly upsetting was that the lawyers called into question the southern practice of excluding Blacks from juries, and addressing whites in court by their last name, and blacks by first name. Samuel Simon Leibowitz (August 14, 1893–January 11, 1978) was an American criminal defense attorney, famously noted for winning the vast majority of his cases, who later became a judge in New York City. ... This article is about the state. ... Decatur, Alabama is a city in Morgan County, Alabama, with a small portion in southern Limestone County. ... Bookcover of Works and Days in Russian Joseph Brodsky (May 24, 1940 – January 28, 1996), born Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (Russian: ) was a Russian-born poet and essayist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987) and was chosen Poet Laureate of the United States (1991-1992). ...

The prosecuting attorney was Thomas Knight, Jr. This time one of the accusers, Ruby Bates, after disappearing for a time to escape from the pressure and the media attention, returned to testify in court when newspapers used private investigation information that Bates and Price had once been prostitutes in Tennessee. She recanted her previous testimony, now stating that she and Price had lied about being raped because they were afraid that they might be charged with the federal crime of crossing state lines for immoral purposes, as they had been traveling with some non-related male companions on the train. Jury members again voted for conviction, having apparently believed the prosecution's suggestion that Bates was now lying and had changed her testimony only because the defense had paid her to do so. The attorney for the prosecution, Attorney General (of Alabama) Knight attacked Bates, calling attention to her new clothes and accessories, and Bates answered that the Communists had supplied her with everything.

The jury sentenced Haywood Patterson to death. The defense motioned for a retrial, and Judge James Edwin Horton, privately believing the defendants to be innocent, agreed to set aside the guilty verdict, despite knowing it meant the loss of his job when he ran for re-election. This article is considered orphaned, since there are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...

Horton was then taken off the case by the Alabama Supreme Court. In his place, the State put Judge William Washington Callahan. The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the state of Alabama. ...

For his decision Horton said:

History, sacred and profane, and the common experience of mankind teach us that women of the character shown in this case are prone for selfish reasons to make false accusations both of rape and of insult upon the slightest provocation for ulterior purposes. These women are shown, by the great weight of the evidence, on this very day before leaving Chattanooga, to have falsely accused two negroes of insulting them, and of almost precipitating a fight between one of the white boys they were in company with and these two negroes. This tendency on the part of the women shows that they are predisposed to make false accusations upon any occasion whereby their selfish ends may be gained. The Court will not pursue the evidence any further. As heretofore stated the law declares that a defendant should not be convicted without corroboration where the testimony of the prosecutrix bears on its face indications of improbability or unreliability and particularly when it is contradicted by other evidence. The testimony of the prosecutrix in this case is not only uncorroborated, but it also bears on its face indications of improbability and is contradicted by other evidence, and in addition thereto the evidence greatly preponderates in favor of the defendant. It therefore becomes the duty of the Court under the law to grant the motion made in this case. It is therefore ordered and adjudged by the Court that the motion be granted; that the verdict of the jury in this case and the judgment of the Court sentencing this defendant to death be set aside and that a new trial be and the same is hereby ordered. James E. Horton, Circuit Judge

The Fourth and Final Round of Trials

Leibowitz reluctantly recognized that he was viewed by Southerners as an outsider, and allowed local attorney Charles Watts to be the lead attorney, while Leibowitz assisted from the sidelines.

• In this retrial, Haywood Patterson was again convicted of rape, but sentenced to 75 years in prison rather than the death penalty—the first time a black man had been sentenced to anything other than death in the rape of a white woman in Alabama. Haywood Patterson escaped in 1948 and fled to Detroit, Michigan. In the 1950s he wrote a book about his ordeal, and then shortly afterwards was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. However, Governor of Michigan G. Mennen Williams would not allow him to be extradited back to Alabama.
• In July, 1937, Clarence Norris was convicted of rape and sexual assault and sentenced to death. Later, Governor of Alabama Bibb Graves reduced Clarence Norris' death sentence to life in prison. He was paroled in 1946. Norris was later pardoned by Governor George Wallace, and he wrote a book about his ordeal.
• Andy Wright was convicted of rape and sentenced to 99 years. He was paroled, then violated parole and was re-imprisoned, then finally released in 1950.
• Charlie Weems was convicted of rape and sentenced to 75 years in prison. He was paroled in 1943, having served 20 years in some of the worst prisons in the nation.
• Ozzie Powell pleaded guilty to assaulting a sheriff (during a previous escape attempt) and was sentenced to 20 years, and the state dropped the rape charges against him in return. After Powell had assaulted the deputy with a razor (and, according to him, had surrendered), he was shot in the head, and consequently permanently brain damaged. He was released in 1946.
• Roy Wright, age 12 at the time of the alleged crime had all charges against him dropped; the state said that they felt that given his age, and time served, he should now be released.
• Eugene Williams, age 13 at the time of the alleged crime had all charges against him dropped, for the same reasons given for Wright
• Olen Montgomery, who was nearly blind and had been found alone in a car at the end of the train had all charges against him dropped, as the state announced that after consideration, they now believed him to be not guilty
• Willie Roberson, who was suffering acutely from syphilis and could barely walk at the time of the alleged crime also had all charges against him dropped, for the same reasons given for Montgomery.

The four who had charges dropped had spent over 6 years in prison on death row without trial. Detroit redirects here. ... F.B.I. and FBI redirect here. ... The following are governors of the Territory of Michigan and the U.S. state of Michigan. ... Gerhard Mennen Williams, also known as Soapy Williams, (February 23, 1911-February 2, 1988), was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan. ... July is the seventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... David Bibb Graves (April 1, 1873–March 14, 1942) was an American Democratic politician and the Governor of Alabama 1927-1931 and 1935-1939, the first Alabama governor to serve two four-year terms. ... This article is about the politician, former governor of Alabama and former presidential candidate. ... Look up Sheriff in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Syphilis is a curable sexually transmitted disease caused by the Treponema pallidum spirochete. ...

Governor Graves had planned to pardon all of the defendants before he left office in 1938. However, during the customary pre-pardon interview, Graves was angered by the mens' hostility towards him and refusal to admit their guilt, so he did not issue pardons.

A marker commemorating the trial

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In the media

In 1976, NBC aired a TV movie called Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys, apparently under the impression that Victoria Price was no longer living. Price emerged to file a defamation and invasion of privacy suit against the network. The case was dismissed. Price died in 1982. Year 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the television network. ... A television movie (also TV movie, TV-movie, made-for-TV movie, etc. ... Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ...

After escaping from prison, Haywood Patterson wrote a book about his experiences, Scottsboro Boy. While attempting to sell copies of the book one night in a Detroit bar, Patterson got into a fight with a man and stabbed him. Patterson was arrested, convicted, and died in prison from emphysema two years later.

While it has sometimes been suggested that the case inspired Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning To Kill a Mockingbird, she denies this, claiming it was a far less sensational case that moved her to write the novel. Nelle Harper Lee (born April 28, 1926) is an American novelist known for her Pulitzer Prize – winning 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, her only major work to date. ... To Kill a Mockingbird is a Southern Gothic bildungsroman novel by Harper Lee. ...

Author Kelly Covin published a book about the case in 1972 titled, "Hear That Rain Below."

Samuel Leibowitz became a justice on the New York Supreme Court, and died in 1978.

In 1998 Court TV produced a television documentary on the Scottsboro trials for its "Greatest Trials of All Time" series.^[2] Daniel Anker and Barak Goodman produced the story of the so-called Scottsboro Boys in a 2000 documentary.^[3] Timothy Hutton stars in a 2006 film adaptation titled Heavens Fall.^[4] For the Canadian channel, see CourtTV Canada The Courtroom Television Network, more commonly known as Court TV, is an American cable television network owned by Time Warner that launched on July 1, 1991. ... Heavens Fall is a movie where two young white women accuse nine black youths of rape in the segregated South. ...

Footnotes

References

• Alschuler, Albert W. (February 1995). "Racial Quotas and the Jury". Duke Law Journal 44 (4): 704-743. 

• Bienen, Leigh; Gilbert Geis (1998). Crimes of the Century: From Leopold and Loeb to O. J. Simpson. Boston: Northeastern University Press. ISBN 9781555533601. 

External links

• Biographies of Key Figures in "The Scottsboro Boys" Trials
• Scottsboro Trial Collection, Cornell Law Library.