GREATEST TRIALS OF ALL TIME: THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS (TV)
Summary
One in this series of documentary programs that profile landmark court trials and their impact on the law. Host James Naughton opens this installment with some background on the case in question, in which nine young black men were accused of raping two white women on a freighter train. The case became a sensation because of its racial themes and dragged out over many years and multiple trials. On March 25, 1931, a fight broke out on a train between several whites and blacks, and when the train stopped in Alabama, two women, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price, accused the boys, aged twelve to twenty, of assaulting them. They were arrested and jailed in Scottsboro, and the National Guard was called when a lynch mob assembled outside the prison. The April 6 trial drew enormous crowds, and the defendants were displeased with their attorney, Stephen Roddy, who seemed both inebriated and ignorant of the law. After only a few short days, during which the all-white jury heard testimony from witnesses including Price, whom author Dan Carter calls a "performer," eight of the nine boys were found guilty and sentenced to death. However, the International Labor Defense, a Communist organization, sent a telegram demanding a stay of execution, although the NAACP was hesitant to get involved. The defendants soon gave the ILD control of their case and the story gained mass publicity, leading to protests in countries around the world and new works from prominent artists, including Langston Hughes. Though conditions were exceptionally bad in Kilby Prison, the executions were delayed.
In January 1932, when the Alabama Supreme Court dismissed the ILD's claim of an unfair trial, they appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which held the state of Alabama responsible for mishandling the case and providing the defendants with substandard representation. The famed New York lawyer Samuel Leibowitz took over the case for free, immediately pointing out the historical lack of black jury members in Alabama courts. Under Judge James Horton, prosecutor Thomas Knight Jr. questioned Price, who gave a detailed testimony about the assaults, but Leibowitz then called her credibility into question and pointed out several inconsistencies in her claims. As rumors of another lynch mob increased, Leibowitz dramatically summoned Bates, who had been missing for some time, to the stand, and she admitted that the rapes had not taken place, though Knight then accused her of being "bought off" by the Communists. One of the defendants, Haywood Patterson, was found guilty again, much to Leibowitz's distress. Bates began speaking out in support of the boys, reiterating their innocence, and historian Nell Irvin Painter notes that she was compromising her own "whiteness" by defending them. Horton declared yet another new trial, motivated by a significant lack of medical evidence, as explained by a doctor, but was pressured to step down and was eventually replaced.
In November, the trial resumed and Judge William Callahan changed many rules, banning cameras from the courtroom and possibly forging several black jurors' names on the list in order to discredit Leibowitz's claims. He forbade questions about Price's sexual experiences prior to the alleged rapes and excluded Bates' testimony, often acting in a prosecutorial fashion himself. After several days, Patterson was sentenced to death for the third time. Two Communist attorneys were later arrested for trying to bribe Price, leading Leibowitz to sever ties with the group. In the following April, the Supreme Court ruled that the defendants' Eleventh Amendment rights had been violated, and the case went back to court in November 1935, though without the controversial Leibowitz, who was replaced by Charles Watts. Patterson was found guilty yet again, though this time avoided the death penalty. One of the other defendants was shot after stabbing an officer, though he survived, and in 1937, Leibowitz returned to the case and two more defendants were found guilty, but the court then abruptly released four of the men under a mysterious agreement. Four of the remaining five were eventually paroled between 1943-1950, though Patterson was "the most disliked" of the nine and remained in prison until he escaped in 1948. He published an autobiography, "The Scottsboro Boy," and the governor of Michigan refused to extradite him when he was later captured. He eventually died of cancer in prison in 1952 after killing a man in a bar fight. The other defendants faded into obscurity, and the last surviving man, Clarence Norris, was eventually pardoned by Governor George Wallace, giving a press conference in 1989. The case is still noted for its significant impact on the racial precedents and double standards of the court system, and on the Constitutional rights of defendants. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: Court TV
- DATE: July 28, 1998 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:45:55
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:66040
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Public affairs/Documentaries; Trials
- SERIES RUN: Court TV - TV, 1998
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Eric Ober … Executive Producer
- Erik Sorenson … Executive Producer
- Lynne Kirby … Senior Producer
- Scott Galloway … Supervising Producer
- Kristian Berg … Producer, Writer
- Mick Caouette … Associate Producer
- Cecil Stokes … Associate Producer
- Joshua Sitron … Theme Music by
- James Naughton … Host
- Ruby Bates
- William Callahan
- Dan Carter
- James Horton
- Langston Hughes
- Thomas Knight Jr.
- Samuel Leibowitz
- Clarence Norris
- Nell Irvin Painter
- Haywood Patterson
- Victoria Price
- Stephen Roddy
- George Wallace
- Charles Watts