United States Supreme Court Reverses Decatur Convictions
See also: Patterson v. AlabamaThe case went back to the United States Supreme Court for a second time as Norris v. Alabama. The court reversed the convictions for a second time on the basis that blacks had been excluded from the jury pool because of their race.
Attorneys Samuel Leibowitz, Walter H. Pollak and Osmond Frankel argued the case from February 15 to February 18, 1935. Leibowitz showed the justices where the names of African Americans had been hurriedly added to the jury rolls. The Justices examined the items closely with a magnifying glass. Thomas Knight maintained that the jury process was color blind.
Because the case of Haywood Patterson had been dismissed due to the technical failure to appeal it on time, it presented different issues. Attorneys Osmond Fraenkel and Walter Pollak argued those.
On April 1, 1935, the United States Supreme Court sent the cases back a second time for retrials in Alabama.
Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Hughes observed the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution clearly forbade the states from excluding citizens from juries due solely to their race. He noted that the Court had inspected the jury rolls, chastising Judge Callahan and the Alabama Supreme Court for accepting assertions that black citizens had not been excluded. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, "something more" was needed. The Court concluded, "the motion to quash ... should have been granted". The Court ruled that it would be a great injustice to execute Patterson when Norris would receive a new trial, reasoning that Alabama should have opportunity to reexamine his case as well.
Alabama Governor Bibb Graves instructed every solicitor and judge in the state, "Whether we like the decisions or not... We must put Negroes in jury boxes. Alabama is going to observe the supreme law of America."
Read more about this topic: Scottsboro Boys
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, supreme, court, reverses and/or convictions:
“America—rather, the United States—seems to me to be the Jew among the nations. It is resourceful, adaptable, maligned, envied, feared, imposed upon. It is warm-hearted, overfriendly; quick-witted, lavish, colorful; given to extravagant speech and gestures; its people are travelers and wanderers by nature, moving, shifting, restless; swarming in Fords, in ocean liners; craving entertainment; volatile. The schnuckle among the nations of the world.”
—Edna Ferber (1887–1968)
“Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Colonel “Bat” Guano: Okay, I’m going to get your money for you. But if you don’t get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what’s going to happen to you?
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake: What?
Colonel “Bat” Guano: You’re going to have to answer to the Coca-Cola company.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“Slowly ... the truth is dawning upon women, and still more slowly upon men, that woman is no stepchild of nature, no Cinderella of fate to be dowered only by fairies and the Prince; but that for her and in her, as truly as for and in man, life has wrought its great experiences, its master attainments, its supreme human revelations of the stuff of which worlds are made.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“We went on, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the soldier, binding up his wounds, harboring the stranger, visiting the sick, ministering to the prisoner, and burying the dead, until that blessed day at Appomattox Court House relieved the strain.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“I notice well that one stray step from the habitual path leads irresistibly into a new direction. Life moves forward, it never reverses its course.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Is it not better to remain in suspense than to entangle yourself in the many errors that the human fancy has produced? Is it not better to suspend your convictions than to get mixed up in these seditious and quarrelsome divisions?”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)