The Scottsboro Trials: 1931-37

Defendants: Olin Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Haywood Patterson, Ozie

Powell, Willie Roberson, Charles Weems, Eugene Williams, Andy Wright, and

Roy Wright Crime Charged: Rape Chief Defense Lawyers: Joseph

Brodsky, George W. Chamlee, Samuel S. Leibowitz, Milo Moody, Stephen R.

Roddy, and Clarence Watts Chief Prosecutors: H. G. Bailey, Melvin Hutson,

Thomas G. Knight, Jr., Thomas Lawson, and Wade Wright Judges: Alfred

E. Hawkins, James Edwin Horton, Jr., and William Washington Callahan

Piaces: Scottsboro, Alabama; Decatur, Alabama Dates of Triais: April 6-9,

1931; March 27-April 9, 1933; November 20-December 6, 1933;

January 20-24, 1936; July 12-24, 1937 Verdicts: All but Roy Wright:

Guilty; Roy Wright: Mistrial Sentences: Death by electrocution, later

reduced

SiGNiFiCANCENo one knows how many cases like Scottsboro occurred in Southern states beforethis one—with its large number of defendants, their youth, their brief and almostcursory trials and severe sentences—demanded national attention. The trials,and their appeals, gave America lessons in the procedures of Southern courts, theopportunism of American communists, the prejudice in the South, and thehypocrisy among Southern whites.

On a March morning in 1931, seven bedraggled white youths appeared in arailroad station master's office in northern Alabama and announced that,

while riding as hobos, they had been thrown off a freight train by a "bunch ofNegroes" who picked a fight. The station master phoned ahead and, nearScottsboro, a deputy sheriff deputized every man who owned a gun. When thetrain stopped, the posse rounded up nine black boys and two white girls—thelatter dressed in men's caps and overalls.

While the white girls chatted with townspeople, the deputy sheriff tied thelilacks together and quizzed them. Five were from Georgia. At 20, CharlieWeems was the eldest. Clarence Norris was 19, Ozie Powell, 16. Olin Montgom-ery. 17, looked "sleepy-eyed," for he was blind in one eye and had only 10percent vision in the other. Willie Roberson, 17, suffering from syphilis andgonorrhea, walked unsteadily with a cane. Four were from Chattanooga, Ten-

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nessee. Haywood Patterson and Andy Wright were 19. Eugene Williams was 13.And Wright's brother Roy was 12.

When the deputy sheriff had loaded his prisoners onto an open truck, oneof the girls, Ruby Bates, from Huntsville, Alabama, told him that she and herfriend Victoria Price had been raped by the nine blacks.

In Scottsboro, the sheriff sent the women off to be examined by twodoctors. Meantime, word of the rape charge spread through Jackson County. Bynightfall, a mob of several hundred, promising to lynch the prisoners, stoodbefore the little jail. The sheriff, barricaded with 21 deputies, phoned thegovernor. But by the time 25 National Guardsmen arrived, the mob had cooleddown and most people had drifted away.

As the tria! began on April 6, 1931, 102 guardsmen held a crowd of severalthousand at a distance of 100 feet from the courthouse.

Ready to appoint defense counsel, Judge Alfred E. Hawkins offered thejob to any lawyer in the county who would take it. He accepted Chattanoogaattorney Stephen R. Roddy, who admitted he didn't know Alabama law, whenlocal attorney Milo Moody offered to help. Roddy, who had a jail record fordrunkenness, was already inebriated at 9:00 A.M.

Circuit Solicitor H.G. Bailey tried Weems and Norris first. Victoria Pricedescribed how she and Ruby Bates had hopped freight trains to Chattanooga tolook for jobs and, finding none, were returning when the black boys, afterthrowing the whites off the train, turned on them. She described how she was"beaten up" and "bruised up" by rape after rape, then "lost consciousness" andnext found herself on her way to the jail in Scottsboro.

Dr. R.R. Bridges testified he saw no evidence of violence when heexamined the girls. Victoria Price, he said, "was not lacerated at all. She was notbloody, neither was the other girl." A second doctor agreed that while both girlsshowed evidence of recent sexual intercourse, the semen found was "non-motile," or inactive, whereas semen is normaliy viable for 12 to 48 hours.

By Thursday afternoon, all defendants except 12-year-old Roy Wright hadbeen found guilty. Because of his age, the state had asked for life imprisonmentfor him, but the jury was deadlocked—seven jurors insisted on death. The judgedeclared a mistrial for Roy Wright and sentenced the eight others to electrocu-tion.

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"Legal Lynching . . . Victims of 'Capitalist Justice' "

Liberals and radicals nationwide reacted. The Central Committee of theCommunist Party of the United States called the sentences "legal lynching" of"the victims of'capitalist justice.' " Its International Labor Defense (ILD) wingpushed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP) to cooperate on taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Harlem,300,000 blacks and whites marched to the slogan "the Scottsboro Boys Shall NotDie."

The !LD hired prominent Chattanooga attorney George W. Chamlee.Requesting a new trial, he and the ILD's chief lawyer, Joseph Brodsky, pro-duced affidavits from Chattanooga blacks stating that they had seen VictoriaPrice "embracing Negro men in dances in Negro houses," that Ruby Bates hadbragged that she could "take five Negroes in one night," that a boarding-houseoperator had let Victoria use a room for prostitution, that she turned down awhite man one night because it was "Negro night." The local press denouncedthe statements as slander, but a Huntsville detective confirmed that the girlswere prostitutes.

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"You Can't Mix Politics with Law"

The motion for a new trial was denied. The defendants switched alle-giance constantly from the NAACP to the ILD and back again. Prominentattorney Clarence Darrow declined the NAACP's request that he steer the casethrough the Supreme Court. "You can't mix politics with law," he said, addingthat the cases would have to be won in Alabama, "not in Russia or New York."The N^VACP then withdrew its support.

In March, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld the convictions of allexcept Kugene Williams; as a juvenile, he was granted a new trial.

In November, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the seven boys had beendenied "due process" under the Fourteenth Amendment when Judge Hawkinstreated the appointment of defense counsel so casually.

Defendant HaywoodPatterson, holding ahorseshoe, with defenseattorney SamuelLeibowitz. [Courtesy,Library of Congress)

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A poignant cartoon fromthe Scotlsboro trials.(Courtesy, Library ofCongress)

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As the state ordered a new trial, the ILD turned to Samuel Leibowitz. anoted criminal lawyer in New York. He argued successfully for a change ofvenue to Decatur, Alabama, where townspeople welcomed the reporters, andWestern Union brought in extra operators.

Haywood Patterson was tried first. Leibowitz produced several revela-tions: Ruby Bates recanted, saying she and Price had invented the rape story to

avoid arrest for vagrancy (but she damagedher credibility by testifying in smart "NewYork clothes" bought for her by the ILDduring a trip they provided to the big city);the boys had been seized from severalpoints al! over the 42-car train; WillieRoberson's painful, raging syphilis madehim incapable of sexual activity; Olin Mont-gomery's blindness was equally limiting;and Victoria Price, who was married, hadserved time for adultery and fornication.

After Dr. Bridges repeated his testi-mony that the girls had not been raped, thesecond doctor—Marvin Lynch—spoke pri-vately with Judge James Edward Hortonduring a recess. "I told the women theywere lying, that they knew they had notbeen raped," said the doctor, "and they justlaughed at me." But, he added, if he testi-fied for the boys, "I'd never be able to goback into Jackson County." The judge, be-lieving the defense would prove Patterson'sinnocence, said nothing.

Defense attorney Leibowitz himselfnow lived with National Guard protectionagainst threats of lynching. County SolicitorWade Wright added to the incendiary atmo-sphere: "Show them," he told the jury,"that Alabama justice cannot be bought andsold with Jew money from New York."

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The jury found Patterson guilty. Thesentence: death. When the defense filed a motion for a new trial. Judge Hortonreviewed the medical testimony about the women, the lack of physical evidenceof sexual activity on the part of the boys, and the unreliable testimony of VictoriaPrice and Ruby Bates. He set aside the jury's judgment and ordered a new trial.Then, under pressure from Attorney General Thomas Knight and the chiefjustice, he withdrew from the case.

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"No More Picture Snappin' Around Here" 1 9 3 1 - 3 7

opening the new trial. Judge William Washington Callahan, 70, dismissed jhe Scottsborothe National Guard. Declaring, "There ain't going to be no more picture _ ~ "snappin' around here," he banned cameras inside or outside the courtroom. Hedismissed Leibowitz's motion to quash the indictment because blacks had beensy.stematically excluded from the jury lists—despite testimony by a handwritingexpert that names had been fraudulently added to the jury book to make itappear that blacks were listed. He ran a 12-hour day in the courtroom. Hedestroyed Leibowitz's defense plan by refusing to permit testimony on VictoriaPrice's sexual activity during the two nights before the train ride. And when hemade his charge to the jury, he told them any intercourse between a black manand a white woman was rape, but he omitted—until Leibowitz darted up to thebench and reminded him—the instructions on how to render an acquittal.

Again Patterson was found guilty and the sentence was death. ClarenceNorris was next found guilty. But now Leibowitz faced an unexpected chal-lenge: Two ILO lawyers were caught trying to bribe Victoria Price, who hadhinted that money could help her change her story. Brodsky told Leibowitz thechanged story would have been "good propaganda for the cause." Furious,Leibowitz announced he would withdraw "unless all Communists are removedfrom the defense." Brodsky capitulated.

Now the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions on the evidenceof exclusion of blacks from jury duty. Alabama Governor Bibb Graves re-sponded, "We must put the names of Negroes in jury boxes in every county."

In November 1935, a grand jury of 13 whites and one black brought newindictments. At the fourth trial, in January 1936, Patterson was again foundguilty, with the sentence this time 75 years' imprisonment. "I'd rather die," hesaid.

The next trial was delayed until July 1937. Then Clarence Norris wasfound guilty and sentenced to death, followed by Andy Wright (99 years) andCharlie Weems (75 years). The rape charge against Ozie Powell was droppedwhen he pleaded guilty to stabbing a deputy sheriff (during a jail transfer) andreceived 20 years. Abruptly, prosecutor Thomas Lawson, who had succeededKnight, proposed nol pros, or dropping of charges, for Olin Montgomery, RoyWright, Willie Roberson, and Eugene Williams. The Scottsboro trials were over.

"All Were Guilty or All Should Be Free"

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Patterson's conviction. Ala-bama Governor Bibb Graves listened to a clemency appeal and agreed that "allwere guilty or all should be freed." He officially set a date to pardon all four, thenreneged. While Graves said he changed his mind after personally interviewingthe Scottsboro boys, those close to the governor said he realized public opinionhad not changed and simply got cold feet.

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Weems was freed in November 1943, Andy Wright and Clarence Norris inJanuary 1944—but Wright and Norris broke parole by moving north and weresent back to prison. Wright was paroled again in 1950. Patterson escaped fromprison in 1948 and was arrested in Detroit, but Michigan Governor G. MennenWilliams refused to sign extradition papers; later convicted of manslaughter,Patterson died of eaneer in prison in 1952. Norris, the last surviving Scottsboroboy, was pardoned at age 64 by Alabama Governor George C. Wallace in 1976.

Victoria Price worked in a Huntsville cotton mill until it closed in 1938,then moved to nearby Flintsville, Tennessee. Ruby Bates toured briefly as anILD speaker, then worked in a New York state spinning factory until 1938,when she returned to Huntsville. Both women died in 1961.

—Bernard Ryan, Jr.

Suggestions for Further ReadingCarter. Dan T. Scoitsdoro: A Trvgedy of ihe American South. Bacon Rouge: Louisiana State llniversicy

Press, 1%9.

Chalmers, Allan Knight. They Shall Be Free. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1951.

Crenshaw, Files and Kenneth A. Miller. Scomitoro: The Firebrand of Communism. Montgomery, Ala.:Brown Printing Co., 1936.

Hays, Arthur Gaffield. Trial hy Prejudice. New York: Covid. Friede Publishers, 1933.

Jordan, J. Glersn. The Unpublished Inside Story of ihe Infamous Scottsborv Case. Huritsville. Ala.: WhitePrinting Co., 1932.

Nash, Jay Roben. Encyclopedia of World Crime. Wilmette, III.: CrimeBooks, Inc., 1990.

Patterson, Haywood. Scottsboro Boy. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1950.

Reynolds, Quentin. Courtroom (biography of Samuel Liebowitz). New York: Farrar, Straus andCudahy, 1950.

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Ryan Jr., Bernard. "The Scottsboro Trials: 1931-37." Great American Trials (2003): 351-356. History Reference Center. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.

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