by Tdarcos » Sun May 16, 2021 7:49 am
While the Central Park Jogger case was bad, it pales in comparison to the trials of
the Scottsboro Boys, where a group of black men were accused of raping two white women, and sentenced to death in trials that were, in some cases, completed in mere minutes. Despite the fact they were tried by all-white juries, the prosecutor claimed there was no racial bias against blacks (they were prohibited from voting, so jury commissioners never even considered there were qualified black nonvoters.) Despite the fact the lawyers assigned to their cases had no criminal trial experience, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld death sentences for eight of the nine defendants, claiming they had had fair trials. The ninth had his death sentence overturned because he was 13-years-old. The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court gave a bitter dissent in which he said clearly their trials were not fair.
This case ended up going to the US Supreme Court twice due to the extreme racial antagonism of the deep south.
While the Central Park Jogger case was bad, it pales in comparison to the trials of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottsboro_Boys#Defense_attorneys]the Scottsboro Boys[/url], where a group of black men were accused of raping two white women, and sentenced to death in trials that were, in some cases, completed in mere minutes. Despite the fact they were tried by all-white juries, the prosecutor claimed there was no racial bias against blacks (they were prohibited from voting, so jury commissioners never even considered there were qualified black nonvoters.) Despite the fact the lawyers assigned to their cases had no criminal trial experience, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld death sentences for eight of the nine defendants, claiming they had had fair trials. The ninth had his death sentence overturned because he was 13-years-old. The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court gave a bitter dissent in which he said clearly their trials were not fair.
This case ended up going to the US Supreme Court twice due to the extreme racial antagonism of the deep south.