NAACP ask Supreme Court to save Georgia Chain Gang Escapee

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“PRESS RELEASE 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
107 WEST 43 STREET * NEW YORK 36, N. Y. © JUdson 6-8397 
ARTHUR B. SPINGARN THURGOOD MARSHALL 
President Director and Counsel 

WALTER WHITE ROBERT L. CARTER 
Secretary Assistant Counsel 

ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS ARNOLD DE MILLE 
Treasurer Press Relations 

FG? RELFASE: December 3, 1953 

NAACP ASK SUPREME COURT TO SAVE 
GEORGIA CHAIN GANG ESCAPEE 

NEW YORK ~ The U. S. Supreme Court was asked last weck to re- 

view the case of Jesse Dukes, two-time escapee from the Georgia chain 

gang to New Jersey and now being held in the Passaic jail for ex- 

tradition on the demand of Gov, Herman Talmadge, 

Dukes, at the age of 12, was sentenced to serve 15 to 25 years 

on the Georgia chain gang for the alleged theft of five automobiles 

at a trial that lasted only a few minutes and at which he had no be 

counsel or advice. He escaped for the second time last year and fled 

to New Jersey, where he was picked up in June and later arrested 

under a warrant requested by the Governor of Georgia, 

His case was fought in the New Jersey courts by the Paterson 

Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 

People. The New Jersey Supreme Court recently said Dukes must return 

to Georgia. 

In the petition to the U. S. Supreme Court, NAACP attorneys 

Claim that the New Jersey high court erred in permitting Dukes to 

be taken back to Georgia and thai the Supreme Court should review the 

case, 

According to the papers filed in the case, Jesse Dukes, just 

12 years old, was snatched from his bed at 1:30 on the morning of 

May 14, 1940, and dragged from his parents' sharecropper plantation 

home in Burke County, Ga., where they lived with 8 of their 12 

children, 

Five automobiles had been stolen three days before, Saturday, 

May 11, in the town of Waynesboro, 13 riles away, and the sheriff, 

his deputy, the local jailer and another man came to get Jesse for 

stealing the five cars, 

The sheriff and his aids broke the house door down, As they 



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snatched him from his bed, he fell to the floor. One of the men hit 

him on the head so hard it bled, 

The boy was thrown into a car and handcuffed to the door, He 

was beaten for hours and told to say that he stole the five cars, 

"We'll kill you if you don't say you took them," the sheriff 

is reported to have told him, He was still handcuffed to the car 

door, 

At eight o'clock he was taken into court before Judge Franklin, 

When asked if he pleaded guilty or not guilty, the jailer spoke up: 

"Guilty, he pleads guilty%" 

The boy never had a chance to say whether he was guilty or not, 

The judge immediately sentenced him to three to five years at 

hard labor for each of the cars supposedly stolen, a total of 15 to 

25 years, The supposed trial was held without the boy having counsel, 

relatives or anyone to advise him that his constitutional rights were 

being violated, 

Jesse had never been to school, did not know how to drive a 

car and still can't, 

He was sent to the burke County chain gang where iron picks 

were clamped on his legs, and he was given the same treatment as 

adult convicts, 

Eighteen months after being on the chain gang he had his thigh 

crushed when a truck transporting prisoners overturned. As a result 

of the accident he now wears a metal plate in his right leg. 

Dukes made his first escape to New Jersey in January, 1948, 

Three years later, 1951, he was located and returned to Ceorgia by 

demand of the Governor. 

He was sent to Cobb County Czmp. There he was beaten un- 

mercifully, put in a sweat box with a half inch of water on the floor 

for 12 days. 

In January, 1952, he escaped again and fled to New Jersey. 

The Ceorpia officials located him six months later and demanded his 

return. 

The Paterson Branch of the NAACP intervened. An attorney was 

engaped to fipht the extradition on the grounds that his constitu- 

tional rights had been violated. 

Page 2 



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On December 19, 1952 the case was taken to the New Jersey 

Superior Court, Law Division to show that Dukes' constituticnal 

rights would continue to be violated if he should be returned to 

Georgia, 

This court refused to hear testimony showing that the boy 

not only had been denied his constitutional rights but cannot expect 

justice in the Georgia courts, 

The case was then taken to the Appellate Division of the 

New Jersey Superior court on June 15, which also refused to hear the 

testimony. 

A petition for certification was made to the New Jersey 

Supreme Court by the NAACP and was denied on September 21, 

In asking the U. S. Supreme Court to review the case, the 

attorneys for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 

People claimed that the New Jersey Supreme Court erred in upholding 

the lower courts' refusal to hear the evidence showing that Dukes!’ 

conviction was in violation of the Federal law and that by sending 

him back to Georgia his rights would continue to be violated. 

"To return him now would be to place him in a position where 

his constitutional rights will be unenforceable in the local courts 

because access to them has been effectively prevented," NAACP lawyers 

contend in their petition. 

The New Jersey courts, have decided a matter not previously 

decided by this Court and in a manner probably not in accord with the 

applicable statement of the law by this Court, they argue. 

NAACP lawyers for Dukes are Thurgood Narshall, NAACP special 

counsel and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational 

Fund, Inc., Mendon Morrill of Paterson, New Jersey, Jack Greenberg 

and Elwood H. Chisolm, both NAACP associate counsel of New York, 

NAACP VA. STATE CONFERENCE GIVES 
$5100 TO SCHOOL CASES December 3, 1953 

NEW YORK--A check for $5100 was sent to the NAACP Legal Defense and 

Educational Fund, Ince, this week by the Virginia State Conference of 

the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People brences, 

The money is to be applied to the cost of the re-argument of the 
five public school segregation cases before the United States Supreme 
Court beginning Monday, December 7. 

One of the five cases, the Virginia case, originated in Virginia, and 
under the militant leadership of Dr. J. M. Tinsley, president of the Va. 
State Conference, and W. Lester Banks, executive secretary, the Con- 
ference has been quite active in raising money to defray cost of the 
CASES, 

30 r=.