All
Courts of justice have the jurisdiction to do justice. However, the judges or
people in the justice system are human and are fallible and injustice may be
perpetuated. They may cooperate with injustice. And when the judiciary fails to do justice
with the required impartiality to the law and evidence presented to it we
experience a justice tragedy.
Such
a tragedy happened back in the year 1931.
It
was during the verge of the Great depression when the disastrous arm of
economic depression and consequently poverty was mercilessly ravishing, causing
havoc, derailing, recking lives of people in every corner of America. In an
effort to avoid being spectators in their own lives, nine Negro boys aged
between 13 to 19 years took initiative and hitched a freight train to travel to
Alabama in order to look for work and earn a living and at least alleviate
their lives out of poverty.
On
the freight train the Negro boys settled in a gondola car (a train car without
a top). While in the gondola car a fight broke out between the Negro boys and
some white boys who were also in the train. The Negro boys prevailed and threw
the white boys out of the train except of one namely, Orville Gilley. The white
boys thrown out of the train reported the incident to a nearby police station.
The police station telephoned the next train station at Paint Town and informed
them of the incidence.
When
the train arrived at Paint Town train station, a large crowd had gathered of
police and the public. The crowd was hostile and explosive. They had heard what
the Negro boys had done to the white boys. A posse was formed and the train was
searched. Everyone on it was rounded up, among them the nine Negro boys and a
white boy.
Everyone
on being removed from the train was asked who they were and what they were
doing on a freight train. In the process, two white girls also emerged from the
train. It was odd, what are two white
girls doing on a freight train? It was common for boys but girls, more so white
girls! The two white girls were Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, on being questioned
of what they were doing on the train and if the Negro boys had bothered them, they
alleged they had been gang raped by the nine Negro boys.
All
hell broke loose. Firestorm ensued. Hot brimstone was ready to be poured on the
nine Negro boys. The Negro boys were almost lynched.
At
the time, due to racism, the perception was that black Negro man had an
insatiable sexual appetite for white women. Just an allegation of a Negro man
spoke to a white woman was enough to effect death by torture.
The
police intervened and the nine Negro boys were taken to jail and the two white
girls were rushed to hospital where they were examined by two doctors, Dr. R.
R. Bridges and Dr. Marvin Lynch.
The
next day the news headline read: “The case has no parallel in crime history of
black beating and raping white.
Six
days Later, the nine Negro having been accused of rape, were taken to Court in
Scottsboro, and hence the name Scottsboro Boys. At the court they were
charged with rape.
They could not afford a lawyer; so a real estate lawyer not familiar with criminal proceedings represented them and spent less than 20 minutes with them and spent them asking them to plead guilty but they pleaded not guilty.
When the prosecution witnesses were testifying in court the Scottsboro boys lawyer did not bother to cross examine the witnesses or the doctor who had examined the girls and did not give the closing remarks summing up the case. The Scottsboro Boys had no witnesses apart from themselves.
They
were convicted and sentenced to death on the electric chair.
They
appealed the conviction to the Alabama Supreme Court of the state; the sentence
was affirmed; they appealed the case to the Supreme Court of USA, on the ground
that they were denied sufficient and adequate Legal counsel during trial. The
Supreme Court through a precedent making judgment of Powell v. Alabama passed
a judgment to their favor and ordered a retrial stating that “if charged with a
crime… a person requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the
proceedings against him.”
A
retrial was ordered.
(Read what happened at the retrial on the next blog)
