“Scottsboro Boys Case Changed America.” Birmingham [AL] News 2 April 2010. 11A.

Scottsboro Boys Case Changed America

Birmingham News
2 April 2010. 11A

Ron Manuto and Sean Patrick O'Rourke*

This week marks the anniversary of an important chapter in the nation's long fight for freedom and social justice. Seventy-five years ago, the Supreme Court handed down a decision reversing the conviction of Clarence Norris, one of the nine Scottsboro Boys, for raping two white women on a freight train headed for Memphis, Tennessee in 1931.

Under the threat of mob lynching outside the jail where the young men were being held, authorities had promised a quick trial and conviction. The trial began 12 days later and eight of the nine, all under 21, were found guilty in the Jackson County Court. They were sentenced to death. With only one dissent, the convictions of seven were upheld on appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court.

The testimony and material evidence in the cases (four in all) is something to behold, a fiery cauldron of fantasy and fabrication more worthy of tragic fiction than judicial proceedings. Prisoner abuse, conflicting and concocted testimony, surprise witnesses, questionable forensics and tales of lurid sex gained the cases of the Scottsboro Boys national and international media attention. But to legal historians the cases represent some of the worst examples of procedural error and blatant racism.

In short, the Bill of Rights did not exist for these young African American males. What they experienced over the years had an eerie resemblance to the 1936 Moscow Trials or Hitler's Reich Ministry of Justice, or something out of Kafka, where the sentences were determined before trial.

And yet, out of their suffering and physical mistreatment, critical constitutional principles emerged. In Powell v. Alabama (1932), the U.S. Supreme Court determined that their convictions had to be reversed because the defendants' right to a fair trial, applicable to the states under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, had been violated. The Scottsboro Boys were entitled to competent legal counsel and the Court, in examining the two attorneys representing the defendants, found they did not have it. Though well intentioned, one was not licensed to practice law and the other was a real estate attorney who had not handled a criminal case in ten years. It was the first time the Supreme Court held that the 14th Amendment required a state to provide indigent defendants (which the youngsters were) with competent legal counsel.

Norris v. Alabama (1935) affirmed another essential principle of the rights of the accused: to have a fair and impartial jury. The 6th Amendment guarantees that in "all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trail, by an impartial jury." Noble words. But in the Jim Crow South they were routinely ignored, repressed or found impractical when black defendants were on trial. Blacks were customarily and consistently kept off jury rolls and, as a result, the Scottsboro Boys were tried by all-white juries. That's why, when Clarence Norris learned he had been accused of raping a white woman, he thought "he was as good as dead."

But in 1935 the Supreme Court shocked both Norris and the state of Alabama.

To Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who wrote the 8-0 opinion for the Court, the issue was clear. Every state must abide by the 6th Amendment. If the jury is partial, intolerant or prejudiced, or if law enforcement acts arbitrarily or criminally, no fair trial can occur. And if the exclusion of African Americans on grand juries or juries at trial, particularly of black defendants, could be established, the state would be in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the convictions would be reversed. Samuel Leibowitz, representing Norris on appeal, argued that blacks had been deliberately excluded from juries and that the names of blacks then appearing on jury rolls had been forged sometime after the start of the Scottsboro trials. After closely examining the record, the Court agreed, determining that Alabama had systematically excluded people of color from serving on juries. It reversed Norris' conviction.

It was a stunning achievement, especially for America in the 1930s. The ruling signaled that there were limits to Jim Crow justice and that the Court would act when states blatantly violated the rights of criminal defendants. Further cases have only solidified the two major cases arising out of the Scottsboro tragedies.

In 1976, Governor George Wallace pardoned all of the Scottsboro Boys. Sadly, only Norris was still alive at the time.

We are, in the end, a paradoxical nation. From amidst some of our worst crimes come some of our best virtues, where principles of equality and social justice continue to grow.

That, at least, is the hope.


*Ron Manuto writes on civil rights and legal issues from his home in California. Sean Patrick O'Rourke teaches courses in protest and public argument at Furman University in South Carolina.