Final Round of Trials
After the case was remanded, on May 1, 1935 Victoria Price swore new rape complaints against the defendants as the sole complaining witness. An African American, Creed Conyer, was selected as the first black person since Reconstruction to sit on an Alabama grand jury. As indictment could be made with a two-thirds vote, the grand jury voted to indict the defendants. Thomas Knight, Jr. now Lieutenant Governor, was appointed special prosecutor to the cases.
Leibowitz recognized that he was viewed by Southerners as an outsider, and allowed the local attorney Charles Watts to be the lead attorney; he assisted from the sidelines. Judge Callahan arraigned all the defendants except the two juveniles in Decatur, where they all pled not guilty. Watts moved to have the case sent to the Federal Court as a civil rights case, which Callahan promptly denied. He set the retrials for January 20, 1936.
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