The Review of Dan T. Carter’s Scottsboro

While segregation of the races between Blacks and Whites, de facto race discrimination, had been widespread across the United States by the 1930s, nine African-American Scottsboro Boys whose names are Ozzie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charlie Weems, Willie Robeson, Olen Montgomery, Roy and Andy Wright, Clarence Norris and Heywood Paterson were accused of raping two young white women named Victoria Price and Ruby Bates in Alabama in 1931. Along with the dominant influences of the Scottsboro cases on American civil rights history, the landmark case has substantial impacts on the U.S. Constitution primarily in that U.S. Supreme Court ascertained a defendant’s right to effective counsel.

Although, there might be other significant legal issues surrounding the cases, I would like to describe the Scottsboro cases mainly focusing on the issues of effective counsel based on Carter’s (1979) book and U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings on Powell v. Alabama. Prior to pointing out the rulings on the right to effective counsel which ultimately reversed the case, the lower courts’ decisions and related circumstances need to be discussed briefly in order to comprehend the rationale of the nine justices’ opinions.

After the black boys were taken into custody and the Alabama National Guard was called for the safety of the defendants, Stephen Roddy who did not specialize in criminal cases and Milo Moody, a 70-year-old local lawyer, were appointed as the defense attorney so as to represent the Scottsboro boys without having an opportunity to consult with the accused. Eight of the nine boys were found guilty and sentenced to death following the three-day trials, and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Alabama.

But even in Alabama Supreme Court, ...

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... She could not even explain exactly what happened at that time; rather, she kept saying ‘I do not know, but they raped me anyways.’ Besides, the medical evidence showing that they did not rape her and Bates should have been regarded as important proof, but it was useless to prove their innocence. Even the juries were all selected as the Whites, and there were some juries who were illiterate. These circumstances sound obviously unfair and tragic in that the unfair trials led all Blacks to being imprisoned.

Works Cited

Carter, Dan T. Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007. Print.

Goodman, Barak, and Daniel Anker. American Experience - Scottsboro: An American Tragedy. PBS, 2005. Film.

Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932)

“The Scottsboro Boys Trials: A Chronology.” N. p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.