Page 15 - Provoke Magazine Vol2

With help from the NAACP, ACLU and the Commu- nist Party USA, the case was appealed and the boys would be tried separately. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed seven of the eight convictions and gave Eugene Williams a new trial because he was a minor. Chief Justice John C. Anderson dissented due to an impartial jury, fair trial, fair sentencing, and effective counsel. The trials were sent back to the lower courts but jury’s continued to sentence the boys despite testimonies from the two women and medical evidence. Eventually, the case was appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, where the landmark Powell v. Ala- bama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932) decision was made.
For the first time in American history, the Court reversed a state criminal conviction due to a provision in the Unit- ed States Bill of Rights. The Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause had not been upheld, the boys were given the right to see a counsel but for only one hour before being sentenced to death.
Despite the outcome of the Supreme Court Trial, only some of the boys received pardons in the years to come, with most ending up tragically back in prison years later or killed. In 2013, the Alabama Governor pardoned the remaining boys, but the damage had already been done. When we look at the rate of incarceration of Black men to- day, there is a vast disparity:
While America has made some strides, there is clearly something very, very wrong. The American justice system is still stacked against Black people. When you take a group of young boys, some barely teenagers, and give them a life of courtrooms and cells, that becomes all they know. Reha- bilitation becomes almost impossible.
The Scottsboro Boys case should be a warning sign, not just as a reminder of what to watch out for but as a symptom of the sickness racism plagues our country with. A case like this doesn’t just live in the past, you can look out at the political and legal landscape today and see it right now.
White – 64% of the US population – 450 per 100,000 Hispanic – 16% of the US population – 831 per 100,00 Black – 13 % of the US population – 2,306 per 100,000 *U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
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