[24], Clarence Norris and Charlie Weems were tried after Haywood Patterson. But he said that the defense attorney Joseph Brodsky had paid his rent and bought him a new suit for the trial. 30 days. It was market day in Scottsboro, and farmers were in town to sell produce and buy supplies. that [14][15] He took the defendants to the county seat of Gadsden, Alabama, for indictment and to await trial. No new evidence was revealed. 29, 2021, thoughtco.com/timeline-of-scottsboro-boys-45428. Price testified again that a dozen armed negro men entered the gondola car. Ruby Bates had given a deposition from her hospital bed in New York, which arrived in time to be read to the jury in the Norris trial. He said that he had not seen "any white women" until the train "got to Paint Rock. Callahan would not allow Leibowitz to ask Price about any "crime of moral turpitude." 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. Price and Bates may have told the police that they were raped to divert police attention from themselves. What was the final verdict? Pollak argued that the defendants had been denied due process: first, due to the mob atmosphere; and second, because of the strange attorney appointments and their poor performance at trial. That June, the court granted the boys a stay of execution pending an appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court. her defeated in his bid for re-election. When Judge Horton announced his decision, Knight stated that he would retry Patterson. Wright and Williams, regardless of their guilt or innocence, were 12 and 13 at the time and, in view of the jail time they had already served, justice required that they also be released. During the long jury deliberations, Judge Callahan also assigned two Morgan County deputies to guard him. . Why did the boys get a second set of trials? On July 26, 1937, Haywood Patterson was sent to Atmore State Prison Farm. 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. How long did the second set of trials last? boys because What did Haywood Patterson say caused the fight on the train? Attorneys Osmond Frankel and Walter Pollak argued those. The Scottsboro Defense Committee (SDC) is established with Allan Knight Chalmers as chairman. 16. He continued, "These defendants were confined in jail in another county and local counsel had little opportunity to prepare their defense. "[118] He attempted to overcome local prejudice, saying "if you have a reasonable doubt, hold out. of the [6][7][8] A fight broke out between the white and black groups near the Lookout Mountain tunnel, and the whites were kicked off the train. After Alabama freed Roy Wright, the Scottsboro Defense Committee took him on a national lecture tour. Neither would he allow questions as to whether she'd had sexual intercourse with Carter or Gilley. though January 24: Ozie Powell pulls a knife and slashes a police officer's throat while being transported to Birmingham Jail. The first jury deliberated less than two hours before returning a guilty verdict and imposed the death sentence on both Weems and Norris. Powell, Roberson, Williams, Montgomery and Wright trial, United States Supreme Court reverses Decatur convictions, Douglas O. Linder, "Without Fear or Favor: Judge James Edwin Horton and the Trial of the 'Scottsville Boys. "[45], The NAACP hesitated to take on the rape case. But others believed they were victims of Jim Crow justice, and the case was covered by numerous national newspapers. Samuel Leibowitz was born in 1893, the son of Romanian Jewish immigrants who came to America to escape anti-Semitism. One letter from Chicago read, "When those Boys are dead, within six months your state will lose 500 lives. is sentenced she 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. A crowd of thousands soon formed. The defense argued that this evidence proved that the two women had likely lied at trial. He later instructed the jury in the next round of trials that no white woman would voluntarily have sex with a black man.[89]. [86], According to one account, juror Irwin Craig held out against the imposition of the death penalty, because he thought that Patterson was innocent.[87]. "The Scottsboro Trials" PBS Documentary The. [33] The second trial continued. That is a toy. Thomas Lawson announced that all charges were being dropped against the remaining four defendants: He said that after "careful consideration" every prosecutor was "convinced" that Roberson and Montgomery were "not guilty." Later, the NAACP also offered to handle the case, offering the services of famed criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow. "[60], Leibowitz asserted his trust in the "God-fearing people of Decatur and Morgan County";[60] he made a pretrial motion to quash the indictment on the ground that blacks had been systematically excluded from the grand jury. Attorney General Knight warned Price to "keep your temper. They later recalled that he "died hard. [13], Sheriff Matt Wann stood in front of the jail and addressed the mob, saying he would kill the first person to come through the door. He is sentenced to death by electrocution. 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]. [80][citation needed], By the time Leibowitz closed, the prosecution had employed anti-semitic remarks to discredit him. The two years that had passed since the first trials had not dampened community hostility for the Scottsboro Boys. Clarence Norris's death sentence is reduced to life in Wann through every page of the Jackson County jury roll to show that it contained no names of African-Americans. The defense objected vigorously, but the Court allowed it.[42]. A group of white teenage boys saw 18-year-old Haywood Patterson on the train and attempted to push him off, claiming that it was "a white man's train". To See Justice Done: Letters from the Scottsboro Boys Trials, Scottsboro Boys Trial Clippings, The University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scottsboro_Boys&oldid=1151036869, Overturned convictions in the United States, Recipients of American gubernatorial pardons, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Articles with dead external links from May 2018, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2016, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2014, Articles prone to spam from February 2015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Following his conviction, Haywood Patterson spent 13 years in prison. Each young man was tried, convicted and sentenced in a matter of days. When she responded that the Communist Party had paid for her clothes, any credibility she had with the jury was destroyed. In the courtroom, the Scottsboro Boys sat in a row wearing blue prison denims and guarded by National Guardsmen, except for Roy Wright, who had not been convicted. (2021, July 29). convicted He denied participating in the fight or being in the gondola car where the fight took place. gruesome All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. "[99] The many contradictions notwithstanding, Price steadfastly stuck to her testimony that Patterson had raped her. It was addressed more to the evidence and less to the regional prejudice of the jury.[118]. to ThoughtCo. While she was not dying, committed to his three-day time limit for the trial, Judge Callahan denied the request to arrange to take her deposition. Having reviewed the evidence and met privately with one of the medical examiners, Judge Horton suspended the death sentence and granted Patterson a new trial. How long did the trials last? I want you to know that. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. of dangerously high local tensions. He said threats were made even in the presence of the judge. July 20 - 21: Andy Wright's is convicted and sentenced to 99 years. "[66] Leibowitz later conceded that Price was "one of the toughest witnesses he ever cross examined. Patterson replied, "I told myself to say it. Graves. 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. When he resumed the next morning, he pointed out many contradictions among her various versions of the rape. Jury Nullification: Definition and Examples, African-American History and Women Timeline (1930-1939), Shocking Moments in 20th Century Black History, Civil Rights Movement Timeline From 1951 to 1959, Profile of Husband Killer Kelly Gissendaner, An Overview of the 'Castle Doctrine' and 'Stand Your Ground' Laws, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), M.S.Ed, Secondary Education, St. John's University, M.F.A., Creative Writing, City College of New York. While planning a visit with former cellmate Norris, it was discovered by the two men that Roberson died of an asthma attack in 1959, the week prior to their reunion. When asked why she had initially said she had been raped, Bates replied, "I told it just like Victoria did because she said we might have to stay in jail if we did not frame up a story after crossing a state line with men." Following Judge Hawkins' denial of the motions for a new trial, attorney George W. Chamlee filed an appeal and was granted a stay of execution. [91] He removed protection from the defense, convincing Governor Benjamin Meek Miller to keep the National Guard away. because African Americans were excluded from sitting on the By the early 1930s, with the nation mired in the Great Depression, many unemployed Americans would try and hitch rides aboard freight trains to move around the country searching for work. March 24: The Alabama Supreme Court upholds the convictions of seven defendants in a vote of 6-1. [127], By January 23, 1936, Haywood Patterson was convicted of rape and sentenced to 75 yearsthe first time in Alabama that a black man had not been sentenced to death in the rape of a white woman.[2]. On July 22, 1937, Andrew Wright was convicted of rape and sentenced to 99 years. convictions. Convicted of manslaughter after a barroom brawl in 1951, Patterson died of cancer in 1952. October 1: Lawyers associated with ILD are caught with $1500 bribe that was to be given to Victoria Price. 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. "[71], Leibowitz systematically dismantled each prosecution witness' story under cross-examination. Norris and Wright leave Montgomery in violation of The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American teenagers and young men, ages 13 to 20, accused in Alabama of raping two white women in 1931. During the Decatur retrial, held from November 1933 to July 1937, Judge Callahan wanted to take the case off "the front pages of America's newspapers. Norris took the news stoically. She testified that she, Price and Gilley were arrested and that Price made the rape accusation, instructing her to go along with the story to stay out of jail. Governor Graves denies all pardon applications. She said Patterson had fired a shot and ordered all whites but Gilley off the train. A band, there to play for a show of Ford Motor Company cars outside, began playing "Hail, Hail the Gang's All Here" and "There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight".
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