On April 4, the Alabama House of Representatives voted 103-0 in favor of a bill to posthumously pardon the “Scottsboro Boys,” nine black teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of the rape of two white women in 1931. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 29-0, and Gov. Robert Bentley has indicated he will sign it. All but one of the group were sentenced to death by all-white juries with virtually no legal representation. The military had to protect them from angry mobs. They lingered on death row for years. Eventually, after several arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court on the right to counsel and proper selection of juries, all of them were freed without execution. Through the years of appeals, one of the women who accused the group of rape recanted and said the claim was a lie. Sen. Arthur Orr, a Republican sponsor of the bill, said, “Their lives were ruined by the convictions. By doing this, it sends a very positive message nationally and internationally that this is a different state than we were many years ago.” The last of the group of defendants died in 1989. (photo: Brown Brothers, Sterling, PA).
(B. Johnson & J. Washington, “Ala. Lawmakers Vote to Pardon the Scottsboro Boys,” Associated Press, April 4, 2013). See Clemency, Innocence, and Race.
