Feb. 17 New Date for Groveland Appeal

    NAACP ene AND EDUCATIONAL FU@, inc. : 5 i 107 West Street 17, New York, N.Y. 
v 

Thurgood Marshall, Director and Counsel 

FOR RELEASE: January 29, 1953 

FEB. 17 NEW DATE FOR GROVELAND APPEAL January 29, 1953 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Jan, 29,-- Argument for appeal of the conviction 

of Walter Lee Irvin, twice-convicted defendant in the famous Groveland 

"rape" case, was postponed last week until Tuesday, February 17, because 

of an injury suffered by one of the lawyers of the National Association 

for the Advancement of Colored People arguing the case. 

The appeal was scheduled for a hearing before the Florida Supreme 

Court Tuesday, January 27, but was postponed when Attorney Alex Akerman 

of Orlando, Fla., suffered a hip injury when he was getting off the 

plane here on his way to the court house. Slated to argue the case 

with him were Thurgood Marshall, NAACP Special Counsel, Jack Greenberg 

of New York and Paul Perkins of Orlando. 

Irvin was originally convicted in 1949 along with Samuel Shepherd 

and Charles Greenlee for the raping of a white farmwife. Irvin and 

Shepherd were given death sentences and Greenlee, then 16, given life 

imprisonment. Shepherd was shot to death and Irvin seriously injured 

by the Sheriff enroute to a new trial on November 6, 1951. 

At this second trial Irvin was again sentenced to death, NAACF 

lawyers cited twenty-two errors committed by the court in the second 

trial. 

GUAM CASE BEFORE U.S. SUPREME COURT January 29, 1953 

WASHINGTON, Jan, 29,-- The case of the two Negro Air Force service- 

men sentenced to death by a military court in 1949 for the alleged 

"rape-murder" of a white civilian worker in Guam, will be argued before 

the United States Supreme Court Feb. 4 by attorneys for the National 

Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 

The hearing by the high court culminates four years of appellate 

proceedings by the NAACP lawyers to get the military courts to reopen 

the case of the convicted men, Staff Sergeant Robert W. Burns and 

Private Herman Dennis, Jr., and to get them a new trial on the ground 

that their constitutional rights had been violated. 

The two men, still being held by the military in Japan, were 

attached to the 12th Air Ammunition Squadrm and stationed on Guam, a 

possession of the U.S., where on Dec, 14, 1948, Miss Ruth Farnsworth 

died after being found unconscious the previous day in a secluded spot 



Press Releases--January 29 <2- 

near where she worked. @ichorities concluded a had been “raped 

and beaten." A number of Negro servicemen stationed on the island were 

picked up and questioned in connection with the alleged crime. 

Sergeant Burns and Private Dennis, along with another serviceman 

Calvin Dennis, were held and turned over to the civilian authorities on 

Jan. 7, 1949, They were subjected to continuous questioning, beaten, 

denied sleep and edible food. On Jan, 30 the men were returned to the 

military authorities and held in custody until Feb. 20, 1949, before 

they were officially charged with "rape and murder." 

The men were placed in death cells and were not permitted ta con- 

sult with counsel or friends until one day before they faced court 

martial in May, 1949, Burns' attorney was given just one day to prepare 

his case, In separate trials the three men were convicted and sentenced 

to death. 

After the conviction, the NAACP was requested by parents and 

relatives of the men to intervene on their behalf. Lawyers for the 

NAACP proceeded to appeal the case to the military reviewing authorities. 

The appeals were denied. Subsequently, a motion for a new trial was 

submitted to the Judge Advocate General, which too was denied. 

The NAACP attorneys then filed a writ of habeas corpus in the 
U. S, District Court on the grounds that the conviction of the men were 
in complete violation of their constitutional rights, that important 
evidence was suppressed and that the whole atmosphere of the trials was 
one of hysteria and violence, 

When the District Court denied the writ of habeas corpus, NAACP 
attorneys then appealed to the Court of Appeals in the District of 
Columbia, which affirmed the decision of the District Court. The U. S. 
Supreme Court was then asked to review the ease, which takes place on 
Wednesday, Feb. 4. 

This case becomes of particular interest to the Negro, it was 
pointed out by one of the NAACP lawyers, because the crime involved is 
the alleged rape of a white woman by Negro men. Apparently, the standard 
of justice applied in sentencing the men is of the same pattern applied 
in almost all of the Southern alleged rape cases which the NAACP has had 
to take to the Supreme Court. 

It was further pointed out that the case becomes increasingly 
important because it may establish several important principles, chiefly: 

1. Whether a military court is bound by the U. S. Constitution to 
accord a person in the military forces a fair and impartial trial. 

2. If not, whether a military person may get redress in a civil 
court by having the judgement declared invalidated on writ of habeas 
corpus for violation of his constitutional rights. 

3. Whether an American citizen being held by American authorities 
on foreign soil, where there is no U, S. court, may contest the violation 
of his rights,in a federal court. 

Actually, the question boils down to whether or not the military 
standard of justice can be fundamentally lower than that of the civil 
courts, and whether a military prisoner has the right to question the 
decision of the military court, the NAACP lawyers stated. 

: The question becomes increasingly important because of the enormous 
size to which the military forces. have: grown, now directly affecting 
oe young Gens sue women warned Shee eeee ee 

z The case will benargued ‘Robert L, Carter; NAACP 
special counsel, and Frank Reeves of ticnineren Boe us 



Press Releases--danua M29 -3- NAACP to Defense and 
Educational Fund, Inc. 

January 29, 1953 

NE\. YORK, N.Y., Jan. 29.-- A sudden turn in the N.A.A.C's appeal to 

the North Carolina State Supreme Court to have the conviction of share- 

cropper Mack Ingram stricken from the records was taken Wednesday when 

the Attorney General's office joined the N.A.A.C.P. in asking the 

state's highest court to review the case. 

Mack Ingram was convicted in November 1952 and given six months for 

"assault by leering at" a white farm girl from a distance of 75 feet. 

The six months' sentence was suspended, 

Following his conviction, attorneys for the N.A.A.C.P. filed an 

appeal on the grounds that the conviction was in violation of both the 

state and the federal Constitutions. 

In their brief, N.A.A.C.P. lawyers attacked the systematic exclusion 

of Negroes from the jury and the vagueness of the statute under which 

Ingram was convicted, 

The Attorney General's office, joining in this brief, did not 

question the evidence or the verdict, but did admit Ingram was denied 

his constitutional right in that Negroes were excluded from the Caswell 

County jury since the Caswell County jury list had been compiled from 

the registration books of qualified voters which was in violation of 

North Carolina law. The State Supreme Court ruled years ago that the 

only qualification for jury service was the payment of taxes, good 

character and intelligence. 

The Chief Counsel for the N.A.A.C.P., Thurgood Marshall, pointed 

out that in all of the years in which the N.A.A.C.P. has fought for 

justice in criminal cases, this is the first time a state's Attorney 

General has joined with the N.A.A.C.P. in asking to have a case 

scrutinized,