Seek High Court Review of Rape Conviction of Georgia Negro

Press Release
November 22, 1965

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Isaac Sims Case

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- 5e7c4b7d-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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Press Releases, Volume 3. Seek High Court Review of Rape Conviction of Georgia Negro, 1965. 5e7c4b7d-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/3de3ee43-396a-421e-8d69-b9c88d04360b/seek-high-court-review-of-rape-conviction-of-georgia-negro. Accessed August 19, 2025.

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    10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 
JUdson 6-8397 

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 

President 

Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers d 

Director-Counsel 
FOR RELEASE 

Jack Greenberg Monday, 
November 22, 1965 

SEEK HIGH COURT REVIEW 
OF RAPE CONVICTION 
OF GEORGIA NEGRO 

Isaac Sims Facing Death Sentence Since 1963 

WASHINGTON, D. 6s The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund 

today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case of a Negro 

who, two years Petey, came within 17 hours of being electrocuted for 

the rape of a white woman. 

Isaac Sims Jr., 29 years old, is under a death sentence for 

allegedly raping a white woman in Charlton County, Ga., in April, 

1963. 

The Legal Defense Fund, in papers filed with the high court 

today, challenges the conviction and sentence on these grounds: 

* A "confession," taken by police shortly after his arrest, 

was admitted as evidence in Sims'’ trial without resolving 

questions of whether the illiterate defendant gave the statement 

voluntarily, understood its contents and knew of his right to 

confer with a lawyer. 

* Negroes were systematically excluded from the jury. 

* Capital punishment is applied discriminatorily to Negroes, 

19 times as many Negroes as whites having been executed in Georgia 

for rape. 
* The death sentence for rape violates the constitutional 

prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. 

Sims was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced in Charlton 

County Superior Court in October, 1963, and scheduled to be 

electrocuted on November 13, 1963. 
The Legal Defense Fund learned of the case just 33 hours befcre 

the sentence was to have been carried out, and a team of lawyers, 

feverishly working around the clock, won a stay of execution with 

17 hours to spare. 
In a subsequent appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court ordered a 

new trial on grounds that Sims' white, court-appointed trial lawyer 

had failed to move for a new trial or appeal the conviction, thus 

violating Sims’ constitutional right to counsel. 
Reindicted and retried in October, 1964, Sims was again 

convicted and sentenced to death, 
The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the second conviction, but 

execution of the sentence was stayed pending the appeal to the 

U. S. Supreme Court. 
Legal Defense Fund attorneys involved in the case are Jack 

Greenberg, Fund director-counsel, and James M, Nabrit Iii, 

associate counsel, both of New York, and Howard Moore, Jr. and 

William H. Alexander, both of Atlanta. 

-30- 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487

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Seek High Court Review of Rape Conviction of Georgia Negro

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