Briefing Session on Capital Punishment Survey

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ONT SHMENT °S ya a&e THE Ec? LEGAL 
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FOR SPECTAR REPO TERS WEDNESDAY, ; aoa 
APRIL 20, AT 2 "20. Pp. Me 2ong fiseb 97" 1S a 

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‘gs! NNACP Legal Defense os FEV Fund,, Ine. 

$452 inthe bi of’ an unprecedented’ survey of capital punishment 
a ete 2 tat oo vis 

for” Pape. 
u nd 

It is the only comprehensive survey on this eee 

ever undertaken. : 

Last summer, in a Fund project, law students selected 

by the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, spent up 

to 10 weeks in 225 counties in 11 southern states. They investi- 

gated 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 to the defendants (age, race, prior 

record); fhe victim (age, race, background), the circumstances 

of the offense (number of assailants and victims, type of 

weapons used, 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. 

"The facts sought in the questionnaire, in my opinion 

and in the opinion of the consultant attorneys (experienced 

in criminal litigation) are those most likely to affect the 

discretion of jurors and judicial officials in sentencing or 

modifying a sentence imposed upon a person convicted of rape," 

Dr. Wolfgang stated in his affidavit. 



The United States, along with South Africa, Northern 

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Bo ne: ofi5 Seren 

Rhodesia (Zambia), Nyasalandi(Ma Daw) edd rere 

five remaining nations in the Woe ti af stip f 
cay penalty for rape where » dedey Bes. no tock 

Within our cae); this anachronism is practiged by the 
11 states of*'the old Noonfedexacy, Bib ordex States and, the;Distrist fe 62 10 yovive baJne of Columbia. thdee states are Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia; 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Borgia, Florida, Kentucky, 

Tennessee, Alabama,’ Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, 
Oklahoma and Missouri. 

In addition, the federal government itself permits the 
death penalty for Tape at sea, in territories, in.the military, 
and where an Indian Tapes a non-Indian on a reservation, 

The Legal Defense Fund presently has 18 capital punish- 
ment cases on its docket in which we hope to establish precedents 
on the sentencing issue. Since the outcome of these cases will 
literally determine life and death, we cannot, at this sitting, 
comment on what the survey project will show in specific suits. 

But certain constitutional issues have been, or will 
be, raised at the Opportune time: whether the death penalty 
is discriminatorily applied against Negroes in violation of | 
the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and, 
whether the death penalty is cruel and unusual, 

Laws now on the books of most of the Deep-South states 
covered by the Survey make death mandatory in rape cases unless 
the jury, by majority vote, recommends mercy. A court,rin such 
cases, may impose a life Senveuce or a lesser term. Where a plea 
of guilty is entered, the judge has full pede over the sentence 
and may give anything from probation to death. The first decision 
as to life or death comes from the jury or judge. It is,,in. joisath 

an 
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any event, apparent that southern states have greatly reduced 

the risk of death for the white defendant-whereas the Negro 

defendant still runs a high risk of hearing the death penalty 

pronounced against him. 

Although we are still avoiding discussion of specie 

cases, we can outline the general pattern of our legal arguments? 

(1) Rape laws have been systematically used to deprive 

Negro men of their lives while white men, charged with 

the same crime are regularly spared. 

(2) This discriminatory imposition of the death penalty 

denies the Negro defendant the full and equal application 

of the laws guaranteed him under the federal Constitution. 

(3) The taking of a life, by the state, when the defendant 

has not killed or seriously threatened the victim constitutes 

cruel and unusual punishment - also a denial of rights 

under the federal Constitution. 

(4) We are making the legal argument that the arbitrary 

discretion to choose between life and death by southern 

juries violates due process plus equal protection because 

in the absence of any standards of that discretion, the 

juries are free to act arbitrarily and discriminatorily.