High Court Acts in Rape Case of Negro Who Cited Bias Study

    Gax 
President 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

PRESS RELEASE Director Counsel 

egal efense und 3 —— 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr. 

10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 
FOR RELEASE 
Wednesday 
January 25, 1967 

HIGH COURT ACTS IN RAPE CASE 
OF NEGRO WHO CITED BIAS STUDY 

WASHINGTON---The U.S. Supreme Court--for the first time--has stepped 
into the question of the unequal application of the death penalty ina 
case involving the rape of a white woman by a Negro man in the South, 

In a brief unsigned judgment, the High Court this week ordered the 
U.S. Court of Appeals in St, Louis to hear the appeal of William Maxwell, 
ar. Arkansas Negro convicted of rape. 

The Supreme Court's action was hailed by the NAACP Legal Defense 
and Educational Fund, Inc, (LDF) whose attorneys represent Mr. Maxwell. 

"This is the beginning of the end for capital punishment," said 
LDF Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg. 

"A number of northern states have already abolished this archaic 
procedure, The Supreme Court is pointing the way for the South,” he 
said, 

The LDF is in the midst of an unprecedented survey of capital 
punishment for rape. 

Mr. Greenberg said that the Supreme Court "said in effect that 
there is a substantial yuestion involved in whether proof offered by 
the LDF estab], es racial discrimination in capital sentencing by 
Arkansas juries. 

ase, the Supreme Court asked that con- 
Defense Fund's argument that the evi- 

e research survey indicates that the 
ed exclusively for Negro men convicted 

In reversing Mr. Maxwell" 
sideration be given to the Leg 
dence found through an exhaust 
death penalty for rape is rese 
of raping white women. 

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When whites are convicted of rape, the death penalty is rarely 
invoked. 

The case was the first brought to the Supreme Court after an ex- 
tensive eleven-state research project costing over $35,000,00 in which 
‘yolunteer law students and statisticians surveyed every conviction for 
the crime of rape in randomly selected Arkansas counties over a 20-year 
period. 

This took place the summer before last when volunteer law students 
spent up to 10 weeks in 225 counties in 11 southern states. They in- 
vestigated every rape conviction there since 1945, They worked under 
the supervision of Professors Marvin Wolfgang and Anthony Amsterdam of 
the University of Pennsylvania. 

The students used an exhaustive 28-page schedule entitled: "CAPITAL 
PUNISHMENT SURVEY." Vast amounts of detailed information was secured 
with regard t> the defendants (age, race, prior record), the victim 
(age, race, background), the circumstances of the offense (number of 
assailants and victims, type of weapons usec, extent of harm to victim), 
and legal proceedings in each case, 

The young people searched trial dockets and appellate transcripts, 
interviewed lawyers--both hostile and friendly--and sometimes inveigled 
prison and parole officers to open their records. 

They developed information on 2,500 rape cases. 

ES 25 



HIGH COURT ACTS IN RAPE CASE 
OF NEGRO WHO CITED BIAS STUDY -2- January 25, 1967 

"The facts sought in the questionnaire, in my opinion and in the 
opinion of the consultant attorneys (experienced in criminal litiga- 
tion), are those most likely to affect the discretion of jurors®and 
judicial officials in sentencing or modifying a sentence imposediupon 
a person convicted of rape," Dr. Wolfgang stated in his affiday, 

The United States, along with South Africa, Northern Rhodesi 
(Zambia), Nyasaland (Malawi) and Taiwan, is one of the five remaining 
nations in the world that still inflict the death penalty for rape 

where death does not occur. 

LDF attorneys are challenging the unequal capital sentencing in 

over 25 cases in 11 southern states. 

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