The Scottsboro Boys' Trials and the Resulting Changes in the American Legal System
Number of pages:
10
ABSTRACT:
This is a 10 page paper discussing the changes in the American legal system as a result of the Scottsboro Boys trials. The Scottsboro Boys Trials from 1931-1938 revealed the injustice within American legal system in the false accusation of nine African American youths: namely, Haywood Patterson, Olin Montgomery, Andy Wright, Willie Roberson, Roy Wright, Eugene Williams, Ozzie Powell, Charles Weems and Clarence Norris, by two white women and the white Alabama court system. Through a series of trials and appeals for the nine boys, it became obvious to all concerned that the boys had not only been unjustly accused of raping the two white women but had also been treated unfairly within the legal system. The trials and appeals however did lead to two U.S. Supreme Court decisions based on the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution which changed and improved American law forever especially in regards to equal rights to African Americans and all minorities. Firstly, the Supreme Court reversed an Alabama State court decision regarding defendants Ozzie Powell, Haywood Patterson and Charley Weems in Powell v. Alabama (1932) when it was deemed that they did not have adequate legal counsel for their trial thus paving the way in the years that followed that all defendants must have adequate legal representation for any crime which may result in a jail sentence if found guilty. Secondly, in a huge civil rights decision, in Norris v. Alabama (1935), the Supreme Court declared that the all-white jury rule in Alabama did not provide the boys with a fair trial by an impartial jury which eventually led to the end of jury restriction based on race throughout the country.
Bibliography listed 5 sources.
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File: D0_TJScott1.rtf
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