U.S. Supreme Court Reviews Life Sentence of Teenager

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- Press Releases
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- LDF
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- 6ac9b94c-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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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 December 08, 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

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U.S. Supreme Court Reviews Life Sentence of Teenager

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