The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American male teenagers accused of raping a young white woman and a 17-year-old white girl in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. It is commonly cited as an example of a legal injustice in the United States legal system.
On March 25, 1931, two dozen people were "hoboing" on a freight train traveling between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee. The hobos were an equal mix of blacks and whites. A group of whites gathered rocks and attempted to force all the black teenagers from the train, but were unsuccessful. The humiliated white teenagers jumped or were forced off the train and reported to a nearby train master that they had been attacked by a group of black teenage boys. Shortly thereafter, the police stopped and searched the train at Paint Rock, Alabama and arrested the black teenage boys. Two young white females were also taken to the jail, where they accused the African American teenage boys of rape.
The case was first heard in Scottsboro, Alabama, in three rushed trials, in which the defendants received poor legal representation. All but 14-year-old Roy Wright were convicted of rape and sentenced to death (the common sentence in Alabama at the time for black men convicted of raping white women), even though there was no medical evidence indicating that rape had taken place. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed seven of the eight convictions and granted 13-year-old Eugene Williams a new trial because he was a minor. The cases were twice appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which led to landmark decisions on the conduct of trials. In Powell v. Alabama (1932), the Supreme Court ordered new trials.Powell v. Alabama, 1932, 287 U.S. 45. During the retrials, one alleged victim admitted to fabricating the rape story and asserted that none of the Scottsboro Boys touched either of the alleged victims. The jury still found the defendants guilty, but the judge set aside the verdict and granted a new trial. The judge was replaced and the case retried. For the third time, a jury—now with one African American member—returned a guilty verdict. The case was sent to the Supreme Court on appeal. It ruled that African Americans had to be included on juries and ordered the cases be retried.Norris v. Alabama (1935), 294 U.S. 587, 595–596. (PDF) Charges were finally dropped for four of the nine defendants. The other five were convicted and received sentences ranging from 75 years to death, although the sentence was soon commuted to life imprisonment with parole.
The case of the Scottsboro Boys is widely considered a legal injustice, highlighted by the state's use of all-white juries. African Americans in Alabama had been disenfranchised since the Reconstruction era and thus were not allowed on juries because jurors were selected from voter rolls. The case has also been explored in many works of literature, music, theater, film and television. On November 21, 2013, Alabama's parole board voted to grant posthumous pardons to the three Scottsboro Boys who had not been pardoned or had their convictions overturned.
Arrests and accusations
On March 25, 1931, nine black teenage males were riding on a freight train on the Southern Railway line between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee, along with several white males and two white females.Aretha (2008), p. 10. A fight broke out between the white and black groups near the Lookout Mountain tunnel, and the whites were kicked off the train. The whites went to a sheriff in the nearby town of Paint Rock, Alabama, and claimed they had been assaulted. The sheriff gathered a posse and gave orders to search for and "capture every Negro on the train."Linder, Douglas O., "Without Fear or Favor: Judge James Edwin Horton and the Trial of the 'Scottsville Boys'", Vol. 68 UMKC Law Review, pp. 549, 550. The posse arrested all black passengers on the train for assault.Acker (2007), pp. 2–3.
The black teenagers were: Haywood Patterson (age 18), who claimed that he had ridden freight trains for so long that he could light a cigarette on the top of a moving train; Clarence Norris (age 19), who had left behind ten brothers and sisters in rural Georgia; Charles "Charlie" Weems (age 19); brothers James Andrew "Andy" Wright (age 19) and Leroy R. "Roy" Wright (age 14), who were leaving home for the first time; the nearly blind Olen Montgomery (age 17), who was hoping to get a job in order to pay for a pair of glasses; Ozie Powell (age 16); Willie Roberson (age 16), who suffered from such severe syphilis that he could barely walk; and Eugene Williams (age 13). Of the nine, only four knew each other prior to boarding.
Two white females were also aboard. 21-year-old Victoria Price and 17-year-old Ruby Bates told a member of the posse that they had been raped by a group of black teenagers.Linder, p. 550. The posse brought the women to the jail where the accused were held, and they identified them as their attackers. A doctor was summoned to examine Price and Bates for signs of rape; none was found. A widely published photo showed the two women shortly after the arrests in 1931.
There was no evidence (beyond the women's testimony) pointing to the guilt of the accused, yet that was irrelevant due to the prevalent racism in the South at the time. Black men were constantly being policed by white men for signs of sexual interest in white women, which could be punishable by lynching. Price and Bates may have told the police that they were raped to divert police attention from themselves. As suspected prostitutes, they risked not only arrest but also prosecution for violating the Mann Act by crossing a state line "for immoral purposes".
Lynch mobs
In the Jim Crow South, lynching of black males accused of raping or murdering whites was common; word quickly spread of the arrest and rape story. Soon a lynch mob gathered at the jail in Scottsboro, demanding the youths be surrendered to them.Aretha (2008), pp. 16–17.
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."Scottsboro: An American Tragedy", PBS.org, American Experience. He removed his belt and handed his gun to one of his deputies. He walked through the mob and the crowd parted to let him through; Wann was not touched by anyone. 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.James Goodman (1994), Stories of Scottsboro, p. 6. Wann took the defendants to the county seat of Gadsden, Alabama, for indictment and to await trial. Although rape was potentially a capital offense in Alabama, the defendants at this point were not allowed to consult an attorney.
Trials The prisoners were taken to court by 118 Alabama guardsmen armed with machine guns. It was market day in Scottsboro, and farmers were in town to sell produce and buy supplies. A crowd of thousands soon formed.Aretha (2008), p. 30. Courthouse access required a permit due to the salacious nature of the testimony expected.Acker (2007), p. 18. As the United States Supreme Court later described this situation, "the proceedings ... took place in an atmosphere of tense, hostile, and excited public sentiment."Powell v. Alabama, p. 51. For each trial, all-white juries were selected. There were few African Americans in the jury pool, as the 1901 Alabama Constitution had been designed to disenfranchise African Americans and poor whites, and African Americans were often disqualified from jury service.
Defense attorneys The pace of the trials was very fast before the standing-room-only, all-white audience. 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. The judge had ordered the Alabama bar to assist the defendants, but the only attorney who volunteered was 69-year-old Milo Moody, who had not defended a case in decades. The judge persuaded Stephen Roddy, a Chattanooga, Tennessee real estate lawyer, to assist him. Roddy admitted he had not had time to prepare and was not familiar with Alabama law, but agreed to aid Moody.Goodman, p. 41.
Because of the mob atmosphere, Roddy petitioned the court for a change of venue, entering into evidence newspaper and law enforcement accounts describing the crowd as "impelled by curiosity".Acker (2007), p. 20.Patterson v. State, 1932, 141 So. 195, 196. Local circuit judge Alfred E. Hawkins found that the crowd was curious and not hostile.Acker (2007), p. 31.
Norris and Weems trial
Clarence Norris and Charlie Weems were tried first. 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. During cross-examination by Roddy, Price livened her testimony with wisecracks that brought roars of laughter.
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. Ruby Bates failed to mention that either she or Price were raped until she was cross-examined.Weems et al. v. State, 1932, 141 So. 215, 217–218. 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. The prosecution rested without calling any of the white youths as witness.Acker (2007), pp. 23–24.
During the defense testimony, defendant Charles Weems testified that he was not part of the fight, that Patterson had the pistol, and that he had not seen the white girls on the train until the train pulled into Paint Rock.
Defendant Clarence Norris stunned the courtroom by implicating the other defendants. He denied participating in the fight or being in the gondola car where the fight took place. But he said that he saw the alleged rapes by the other blacks from his spot atop the next boxcar.Acker (2007), pp. 24–25. The defense put on no further witnesses.
During closing, the prosecution said, "If you don't give these men death sentences, the electric chair might as well be abolished."Acker (2007), p. 25. The defense made no closing argument, nor did it address the sentencing of the death penalty for their clients.
The Court started the next case while the jury was still deliberating the first. The first jury deliberated for less than two hours before returning a guilty verdict and imposed the death sentence on both Weems and Norris.Acker (2007), p. 26.
Patterson trial
The trial for Haywood Patterson occurred while the Norris and Weems cases were still under consideration by the jury. When the jury returned its verdict from the first trial, the jury from the second trial was taken out of the courtroom. When the verdicts of guilty were announced, the courtroom erupted in cheers, as did the crowd outside. 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".Patterson v. State, 1932, 141 So. 195, 198. The celebration was so loud that it was most likely heard by the second jury waiting inside.
After the outburst, the defense of Patterson moved for a mistrial, but Judge Hawkins denied the motion and testimony continued.Acker (2007), p. 38. The second trial continued. During the second trial's prosecution testimony, Victoria Price mostly stuck with her story, stating flatly that Patterson raped her. She accused Patterson of shooting one of the white youths. Price volunteered, "I have not had intercourse with any other white man but my husband. I want you to know that."