U.S. Supreme Court Reviews Life Sentence of Teenager
Press Release
February 25, 1969

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Press Releases, Volume 6. U.S. Supreme Court Reviews Life Sentence of Teenager, 1969. 6ac9b94c-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/50d0b75c-0fee-43fd-858e-5eb6effbeb68/us-supreme-court-reviews-life-sentence-of-teenager. Accessed April 29, 2025.
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President Hon. Francis E. Rivers PRESS RELEASE DirastorCounsel egal efense und oie Coabere NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Pen te Jesse DeVore, Jr. NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 FOR PRESS RELEASE February 25, 1969 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 U. S. SUPREME COURT REVIEWS LIFE SENTENCE OF TEENAGER LDF attorney argues case WASHINGTON, D. C.--The U. S. Supreme Court today will hear the case of 14 year-old John Davis, a Negro from Meridian, Mississippi who has been convicted of raping a white woman. Davis is now under a life sentence. His attorney, Melvin Zarr of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., said the elderly woman Davis allegedly raped could only identify her assailant as "a Negro." Mr. Zarr contends that Davis' finger prints, used as evidence in the case, were taken illegally, and el ciereress unlawful evidence; an argument which he based on an earlier Supreme Court ruling (Mapp _v. Ohio bans the use of illegally seized evidence in a state trial). However, Zarr said, with or without the finger prints the evidence at the trial was insufficient to go to a jury. He charges also that Davis was illegally arrested by the Meridian police. Based on these contentions, Mr. Zarr will argue that the lower court violated the teenager's rights guaranteed him by the 4th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. =30= NOTE: Though the LDF was once a part of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) it now is a separate organization, even though the initials are retained in its title. 25 f