Death Penalty for Robbery Called Cruel and Unusual
Press Release
December 5, 1968

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Press Releases, Volume 5. Death Penalty for Robbery Called Cruel and Unusual, 1968. f5437f28-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/5d5f16cc-1de9-4e59-b11c-ce2af6e89839/death-penalty-for-robbery-called-cruel-and-unusual. Accessed July 30, 2025.
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180 190 President Hon. Francis E. Rivers PRESS RELEASE Director Counsel egal efense und Jock Groans Director, Public Relations NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr. 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 FOR RELEASE THURSDAY December 5, 1968 DEATH PENALTY FOR ROBBERY ~ CALLED CRUEL AND UNUSUAL WASHINGTON, D.C.---The U.S. Supreme Court was asked today to set aside the Alabama death penalty against Edward Boykin, Jr., a Negro charged with committing five robberies. The execution of a man for robbery is cruel and unusual punish- ment, argued attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), because: 1) it invoives brutal and unnecessary physical and psychological cruelty, 2) is abhorrent to civilized standards, 3) is justified by no yational standards, 4) is a rare | and unusual penalty which is 5) applied by juries which are given absolute discretion and 6) insufficient information about the offender. The LDF brief notes that there have been only 25 executions for robbery in the United States between 1930 and 1965. Twenty-three of these cases took place in southern states, and 19 of the victims were Negro. In Alabama, the LDF points out, all five persons executed for robbery have been Negro. The attorneys also argue against "the unfettered discretion of a | jury," which was empowered by Alabama law to choose between the penal- ties of death and imprisonment “arbitrarily, capriciously, for any | reason, or no reason" and without instruction by a trial judge, thereby violating due process of law. Three days after the first appointment of a lawyer by the court, Boykin, an indigent, was arraigned on five separate capital charges. He pleaded guilty to all charges. The LDF is presently representing, or assisting private attorneys who are representing, more than half of the 400 men on the death rows of America. The LDF involvement grew from years of experience with death cases in the South where Negroes had received the death penalty for the rape of white women. Of the 400 persons executed for the crime of rape since 1930, 90 per cent have been Negroes; yet this figure alone was not considered proof of racial discrimination in the courts, The LDF sponsored an extensive sociological survey during the summer of 1965 of 2,500 rape cases in the 11 southern states, in- volving both white and Negro defendants, to determine objectively and scientifically where any factors other than racial discrimination could account for the high rate of death sentences for the Negroes convicted of raping white women. -30- NOTE: Though the LDF was once a part of the NAACP, it is now a separate and distinct organization, even though the initials are retained in its title.