LDF Seeks High Court Review of Capital Punishment Cases

Press Release
October 1, 1968

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- 5a89ff03-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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Press Releases, Volume 5. LDF Seeks High Court Review of Capital Punishment Cases, 1968. 5a89ff03-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/3e8a7948-aae4-4414-899b-bb769518052a/ldf-seeks-high-court-review-of-capital-punishment-cases. Accessed October 08, 2025.

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”'*Hion. Francis E. Rivers
PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel

egal fefense lund Jack Greenberg
Director, Public Relations

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC, Jesse DeVore, Jr.
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 FOR RELEASE NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487

TUESDAY
October 1, 1968

LDF SEEKS HIGH COURT REVIEW
OF CAPITA, PUNISHMENT CASES

WASHINGTON, D.C.---Attorneys for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educa-
tional Fund, Inc. (LDF) today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review
two capital punishment cases.

The attorneys charge that the death sentences handed out to two condemned men @n New Jersey's death row and one on Alabama's death
row are unconstitutional.

Director of LDF's capital punishment project, Jack Himmelstein, said the case on behalf of the New Jersey prisoners, Leo R. Forcella and Victor R. Funicello, attacks important basic procedures that were
involved in sentencing them.

He said also that, if the Supreme Court reviews the case, the Court's ruling will affect not only the two prisoners but some 20 additional men now under death sentences in New Jersey as well as a substantial number of the 500 condemned men across the country.

In the case of Alabama prisoner Climmie McCants, Mr. Himmelstein said police forced a confession from McCants after three days of interrogation even though they knew that his family had obtained a
lawyer for him.

Alabama juries, according to Himmelstein, have no guidance under
law relevant to what he termed "the all-important life-death choice." | Such choices, he said, are therefore left to the "whim and caprice" | 65£ the individual jurors.

| :
|

“. LDF attorneys challenge the procedure whereby a capital defendant | ‘who pleads guilty can receive a maximum cf life imprisonment while a | defendant. pleading not guilty and choosing trial by jury can be | punished by death.

| | This, LDF officials hold, unconstitutionally penalizes with death “one*s right to jury trial and the right to contest one's guilt.

LDF will also challenge what it calls the "death-qualifying" of
Capital juries whereby persons Opposed to capital punishment are ex-
cluded from juries. It is claimed that this procedure produces juries
uncommonly willing to hand down a death sentence.

LDP attorneys say that juries in New Jersey have no guidance
‘under the law on how to choose between life and geath penalties,
making a death verdict arbitrary; that they determine guilt and punish-
ment simultaneously, making it fairly impossible to introduce evidence
on punishment; and that juries from which opponents of capital punish-
ment are excluded are more likely to convict than average juries.

Hinmelstein said that the case present to the Supreme Court the
question of whether capital punishment should today be prohibited as
cruel and unusual.

=30~

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LDF Seeks High Court Review of Capital Punishment Cases

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