Death Penalty for Robbery Called Cruel and Unusual

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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. 

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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.