Defense
After weeks of investigation, Jaworski decided to charge 43 soldiers, all of them African American, with rioting, a crime with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Three of the men – Luther Larkin (1921–1948), Arthur Hurks (1921–1991) and William Jones (1924–1992) – were also charged with first-degree murder, and faced a possible death sentence. It was the largest number of defendants in a single United States Army trial during World War II.
The defendants were provided just two lawyers among them, who were given just ten days to prepare their cases. The lead defense attorney, William Beeks (1906–1988), later became a federal judge. He was assisted by Howard Noyd, a former football player from Iowa.
Without much time, defense lawyers decided to focus most of their energy on trying to keep the soldiers from the gallows.
Read more about this topic: Fort Lawton Riot
Famous quotes containing the word defense:
“If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.”
—Malcolm X (1925–1965)
“... most Southerners of my parents’ era were raised to feel that it wasn’t respectable to be rich. We felt that all patriotic Southerners had lost everything in defense of the South, and sufficient time hadn’t elapsed for respectable rebuilding of financial security in a war- impoverished region.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 1 (1962)
“Though a censure lies against those who are poor and proud, yet is Pride sooner to be forgiven in a poor person than in a rich one; since in the latter it is insult and arrogance; in the former, it may be a defense against temptations to dishonesty; and, if manifested on proper occasions, may indicate a natural bravery of mind, which the frowns of fortune cannot depress.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)