Jackson County is the northeasternmost county in the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2010 census, the population was 53,227. The county seat is Scottsboro. The county was named for Andrew Jackson, general in the United States Army and afterward President of the United States of America. Jackson County is a prohibition or dry county, but three cities within the county are "wet", allowing alcohol sales.
Walter Francis White was an American civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for almost a quarter of a century, 1931–1955, after joining the organization as an investigator in 1918. He directed a broad program of legal challenges to racial segregation and disfranchisement. He was also a journalist, novelist, and essayist. He graduated in 1916 from Atlanta University, a historically black college.
In Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932), the United States Supreme Court reversed the convictions of nine young black men for allegedly raping two white women on a freight train near Scottsboro, Alabama. The majority of the Court reasoned that the right to retain and be represented by a lawyer was fundamental to a fair trial and that at least in some circumstances, the trial judge must inform a defendant of this right. In addition, if the defendant cannot afford a lawyer, the court must appoint one sufficiently far in advance of trial to permit the lawyer to prepare adequately for the trial.
Samuel Guy Endore, born Samuel Goldstein and also known as Harry Relis, was an American novelist and screenwriter. During his career he produced a wide array of novels, screenplays, and pamphlets, both published and unpublished. A cult favorite of fans of horror, he is best known for his novel The Werewolf of Paris, which occupies a significant position in werewolf literature, much in the same way that Dracula does for vampire literature. Endore is also known for his left-wing novel of the Haitian Revolution, Babouk: The Story of A Slave. He was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), and his novel Methinks the Lady. .. (1946) was the basis for Ben Hecht's screenplay for Whirlpool (1949).
Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278 (1936), was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that a defendant's involuntary confession that is extracted by police violence cannot be entered as evidence and violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In law, a legal opinion is in certain jurisdictions a written explanation by a judge or group of judges that accompanies an order or ruling in a case, laying out the rationale and legal principles for the ruling.
Judge James Edwin Horton was a Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit Court in Alabama. He was elected in 1922 and again in 1928.
Robert Emmett Jones Jr. was a member of the United States House of Representatives from the 8th district of Alabama. He was the last to represent that district before it was removed as a result of the 1970 United States Census. Presently there are seven U.S. House districts in Alabama.
An all-white jury is a sworn body composed only of white people convened to render an impartial verdict in a legal proceeding. Juries composed solely of one racial group are not prohibited in the United States. However, the phrases "all-white jury" and "all-black jury"' may raise the expectation that deliberations may be less than fair. While the racial composition of juries is not dictated by law, racial discrimination in the selection of jurors is specifically prohibited. Racial discrimination in jury selection has a long history in the United States.
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy is a 2001 American documentary film directed by Daniel Anker and Barak Goodman. The film is based on one of the longest-running and most controversial courtroom pursuits of racism in American history, which led to nine black teenaged men being wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in Alabama. The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
B. D. Amis was an African American labor organizer and civil rights leader. Particularly influential in the fight for African Americans' and workers during the period of official segregation in the South and informal discrimination throughout the country, Amis is most remembered for his militant Communist activism on behalf of the notable legal cases of the falsely-accused Scottsboro Boys, the African American organizer Angelo Herndon, as well as the white labor leader Tom Mooney.
Patterson v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 600 (1935), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that an African-American defendant is denied due process rights if the jury pool excludes African-Americans.
Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587 (1935), was one of the cases decided by the United States Supreme Court that arose out of the trial of the Scottsboro Boys. This was a case in which nine African-American teenagers were accused of raping two white women in 1931. The Scottsboro Trial Jury had no African-American members. Several cases were brought to the Supreme Court to debate the constitutionality of all-White juries. Norris v Alabama centered around Clarence Norris, one of the Scottsboro Boys, and his claim that the jury selection had systematically excluded black members due to racial prejudice.
Osmond Fraenkel was a United States attorney who served as general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
The International Labor Defense (ILD) (1925–1947) was a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 in the United States as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network. The ILD defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was active in the anti-lynching, movements for civil rights, and prominently participated in the defense and legal appeals in the cause célèbre of the Scottsboro Boys in the early 1930s. Its work contributed to the appeal of the Communist Party among African Americans in the South. In addition to fundraising for defense and assisting in defense strategies, from January 1926 it published Labor Defender, a monthly illustrated magazine that achieved wide circulation. In 1946 the ILD was merged with the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties to form the Civil Rights Congress, which served as the new legal defense organization of the Communist Party USA. It intended to expand its appeal, especially to African Americans in the South. In several prominent cases in which blacks had been sentenced to death in the South, the CRC campaigned on behalf of black defendants. It had some conflict with former allies, such as the NAACP, and became increasingly isolated. Because of federal government pressure against organizations it considered subversive, such as the CRC, it became less useful in representing defendants in criminal justice cases. The CRC was dissolved in 1956. At the same time, in this period, black leaders were expanding the activities and reach of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1954, in a case managed by the NAACP, the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.
In the United States, a public defender is an attorney-at-law appointed by the courts and provided by the state or federal governments to represent and advise those who cannot afford to hire a private attorney. Public defenders are full time attorneys employed by the state or federal governments. The public defender program is one of several types of criminal legal aid in the United States.
Joseph R. Brodsky, often known as Joseph Brodsky and Joe Brodsky, was an early 20th-Century American civil rights lawyer, political activist, general counsel of the International Labor Defense (ILD), co-founder of the International Juridical Association (IJA), and member of ILD defense team for members of the Scottsboro Boys Case of the 1930s.
