Jackson v. Georgia On Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Georgia

    IN THE

/ .. t

Suprem e Court (Of Che •Muitcb S ta te s
OCTOBER TERM -  1971

NO. 69-5030

LUCIOUS JACKSON, JR.,

Petitioner,

VS.

STATE OF GEORGIA 
Respondent

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT

OF GEORGIA



IN THE

jsk tp  rente (Court (Of IT hc 'U n ited  S t a t e s
OCTOBER TERM -  1971 

NO. 69-5030

LUCIOUS JACKSON, JR.,

Petitioner,

VS.

STATE OF GEORGIA 
Respondent

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT

OF GEORGIA

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Page No.

34 Lawyers Edition, page 519, 136 U.S. 436, 447 . . .  3
25 Lawyers Edition, page 345, 99 U.S. p. 1 3 0 ........... 4
356 U.S. page 86, 2 Lawyers Edition 2, p. 630 ......... 5
93 Lawyers Edition, p. 1337, 337 U.S. p. 240-253 . . 6
325 Federal 2d page 573 .............................................. 7
329 U.S. page 459, 481,91 Lawyers Ed. p 422........... 9
Bill of Rights of 1688 and act of Parliment ...............  10
220 Georgia page 7 .................................................. . 13



BRIEF OF RESPONDENT

Petitioner was tried in the Superior Court of 
Chatham County, Georgia, on the 10th day of December, 
1968, charged with the offense of rape, and after the 
Jury deliberated they found the defendant guilty. He was 
sentenced to death by electrocution.

Mrs. Mary George Coleman Rose, after being 
duly sworn, testified that she resided at number 12 
McIntosh Drive located in Isle of Hope, Chatham County, 
Georgia. That back on the 3rd day of October, 1968, that 
she and her husband awakened at approximately 6:30 in 
the morning. (Transcript of Evidence page 51, lines 20, 
21, 22, page 52, lines 1 and 2). That she and her husband 
chatted and that he left at approximately 7:00 o’clock 
that morning. That she went back to sleep and was 
awakened by her crying four months old baby at 
approximately 7:45. (Tr. of E. page 52 lines 6, 7, 8, 9, 
and 10). Mrs. Rose testified that she got out of bed,' 
changed the baby s diapers, fixed some coffee and toast 

■ and a bottle for the baby, gave the baby her bottle and 
went in the living room and watched television. (Tr of E 
page 52 lines 19 through 25). Mrs. Rose at 
approximately 7:45 a.m. (Tr. of E. page 52 lines 6,7*8,9, 
the baby a bath at which time she heard a noise in the 
house but thought that it was the cat walking on the 
floor. (Tr. of E. page 53 lines 7 through 27). That after 
the baby was bathed she heard an unusual noise and went 
into the dining room area of the house, did not see 
anything and returned to the baby’s room where she saw 
a young colored male standing in the doorway of the 
closet in the baby’s room with an object in his hand (Tr 
of E. page 56 lines 20 through 28, Tr. of E. page 57, lines 
1 through 27, and Tr. of E. page 58 lines 1 through 17). 
The young Negro male took two steps and was beside her 
grabbing her arm and putting the one-half pair of scissors 
against the right side of her neck. (Tr. of E. page 58 lines 
20 through 27). At this time the young Negro male told 
her that all he wanted was money, that they went 
through the house looking for her pocketbook which 
they found in the bath room which contained no money.



They then went into the
dollar bill and a pennY on s j through 26). At all
lines 7 through 27 page 1 ^  Qne_half pair of scissors 
times petitioner was g grabbed tor the
against Mrs. Roses neck ^ e\ \ er hands on them and 
scissors and did manage t  unable to do so because 
tried to stab petitione Roor be grabbed her hand
as they were tu s s t in g 1 it against the bedpost. This
holding the scissors and beat g> , rpr. 0f E. pagewas after he had slapped her b a c k w a ^  t .^ ^  ,
64 lines 5 through 22, Tr ot and Mrs Rose
7). At this time both th P jtioner retrieved the 
struggled for the scisso -nst tbe neck of Mrs. Rose
scissors and again p S iegs pending her legs
while he was on top of er m th  us g 28> page
on the floor (Tr. ot E page M * that time tore the 
67 lines 1 through 6)- Ptt^ f and while holding the 
house robe off o • unzipped his pants and raped 
scissors against her throat M , 27 and page 68
her. (Tr. of E. linesT through 2). Wh.le
lines 1 through ~7, P S  Rose and having intercourse 
Petitioner was on top front door which later
with her a knock was heard t u petitioner jumped
proved to be the maid at whici u n ^  of E page 71
up and fled out Jrcr R teft with the maid and the 
lines 1 through 25). r -  next door and made a
f° Ur la in flo  M^. Mabel Lanier of what had transpired.
(Tn of E. page 73 lines i[ been first sworn

Mrs. Dons Southward h Mrs. Rose and
testified that she was .em.f  °y0rk * e^ould not gain entry 
that when she arrived a d to the front door,
through the side door, went a and that
knocked and and hysterical. (Tr.
of E. page 81, lines 2 through 4) bcen first sworn

Mrs. Mabel Lame McIntosh Drive, Isle of 
testified that she lived at 20 M 1 Qn 0ctober 3,
Hope, Chatham County Georg ^  jn (he raomingMrs. 
1968, at approximately 9-uu had bcen raped.

bloody, a ,  of E. Page



within the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States of America.

Respondent lias searched numerous decisions
but can not find a better decision than that rendered by 
the late Chief Justice Duckworth of the Georgia Supreme 
Court in the case of Sims vs. Balkcom, 220 Georgia, page 
7 wherein the Defendant was indicted, tried and 
convicted of the offense of rape and sentenced to the 
electric chair. In Chief Justice Duckworth s decision on 
whether a death penalty was too extensive for the charge 
of rape we quote to the Court the following.  ̂ _

“No determination of this question is either wise 
or humane if it fails to take full account of the 
major place in civilized society of woman. She is 
the mother of the human race, the bedrock ot 
civilization; her purity and virtue are the most 
priceless attributes of human kind. The infinite 
instances there she has resisted even unto death 
the bestial assaults of brutes who were trying to 
rape her are eloquent and indisputable proof of 
the inhuman agonies she endures when raped. 
She has chosen death instead of rape. How can a 
mere mortal man say the crime of rape upon her 
was less than death? Man is the only member of 
the animal family ot which we have any 
knowledge that is bestial enough to forcibly rape 
a female. Even a dog is too humane to do such 
an outrageous injury to the female.”
“We are not dealing with the wisdom of capital 
punishment in any case. That must be left by 
the judiciary to the legislative department. But 
any man, who can never know the haunting 
torment of a pure woman after a brutal man has 
forcibly raped her, who would arbitrarily 
classify that crime below murder, would reveal a 
callous appraisal of the true value of woman s 
virtue.
In the case before this Honorable Court we have 

a housewife who at that time had a small child, we have 
an escaped convict who broke into the safety and 
confines of her home and forced his sexual desires upon 
her. We have a mother and the wife who caused no harm



to petitioner, did not even know petitioner, who, now, 
must live for the rest of her life with those moments that 
happened in her house on that morning.

As Chief Justice Duckworth so well put the role 
of woman in our civilized society, can this Court now say 
that the crime of rape is any less than the crime of 
murder?

We respectfully propose this theory to this 
Honorable Court. In order for a homicide to be decided 
murder there must be premeditation in the mind of a 
person committing the homicide. This premeditation can 
be for days, hours, minutes, or seconds. There has never 
been a rape committed to the knowledge of this writer 
that was not as premeditated as any murder ever 
committed in this country. In order for a person to 
commit rape he must know what he is doing and for 
minutes he must have the intention to rape prior to the 
insertion of his private parts into that of the female. In 
most cases, as in this case, there is a struggle between the 
victim and the man committing the assault. This struggle 
can be for minutes, or longer. There is no doubt in the 
mind of the writer that rape is the most hideous crime 
that any person can commit. To think that it does not 
justify the death penalty for a man to force himself upon 
the weaker sex, upon the wife of another man, a 
daughter, is tantamount to saying that we consider the 
virtue of woman less that what men have died defending.

Throughout the annals of our history even to 
the present day, men have fought and died to protect the 
virtue of women. To classify rape in any lesser degree 
than we classify murder would be to take a deep rooted • 
principle of our nation and destroy it, the principle being 
the pedestal upon which women have been placed.

Petitioner has directed his brief to this 
Honorable Court, in the direction of executing only 
people of color for the offense of rape and not white 
people. We do not believe the Court can justifiably accept 
this theory. We consider a crime not individual people, 
we consider the punishment for that crime and not how 
many places and how many others we have punished for



For we see no difference from a constitutional 
point of view between a new trial for error of 
law at the instance of the State that results in a 
death sentence instead of imprisonment for life 
and the execution that follows because of failure 
of equipment. When an accident, with no 
suggestion of malevolence, prevents the 
consummation of a sentence, the State’s 
subsequent course in the administration of its 
criminal law is not affected on that account by 
any requirement of due process under the 
Fourteenth Amendment. We find no double 
jeopardy here which can be said to amount to a 
denial of federal due process in the proposed 
execution.”

“We find nothing in what took place here which 
amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in the 
Constitutional sense. The case before us does 
not call for an examination into any punishment 
except that of death ....”
“ The trad itio n a l humanity of modern 

Anglo-American law forbids the infliction of unnecessary 
pain in the execution of the death sentence. Prohibition 
against the wanton infliction of pain has come into our 
law from the Bill of Rights of 1688. The identical words 
appear in our Eighth Amendment. The Fourteenth 
Amendment would prohibit by its due process clause 
execution by a state in a cruel manner.

“Petitioner’s suggestion is that because he once 
underwent the psychological strain of preparation for 
electiocution, now to require him to undergo this 
preparation again subjects him to a lingering or cruel and 
unusual punishment. Even the fact that petitioner has 
already been subjected to a current of electricity does not 
make his subsequent execution any more cruel in the 
constitutional sense than any other execution. The 
cruelty against which the Constitution protects a 
convicted man is cruelty inherent in the method of 
punishment, not the necessary suffering involved in any 
method employed to extinguish life humanely. The fact 
that an unforeseeable accident prevented the prompt



consummation of the sentence cannot, it seems to us, add 
an element of cruelty to a subsequent execution. There is 
no purpose to inflict unnecessary pain nor any 
unnecessary pain involved in the proposed execution. The 
situation of the unfortunate victim ot this accident is just 
as though he had suffered the identical amount of mental 
anguish and physical pain in any other occurrence, such 
as, for example, a fire in the cell block. We cannot agree 
that the hardship imposed upon the petitioner rise to that 
level of hardship denounced as denial of due process 
because of cruelty.”

We can see by the Francis case (Supra), that the 
Supreme Court of the United States still upheld the 
theory that unless the type of execution to effect the 
death* penalty is that of torture or lingering death then, 
even though the malfunction of the device used occurred 
to effect that type of punishment failed, it still is not 
excluded by the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. 
Surely this Honorable Court would agree that the Francis 
case (Supra) would come close, if not the closest, to 
meeting a definition of a lingering death. Can this Court 
say that to prepare a person for death, see him upon the 
instrument that would cause his death, and let him 
experience all the fears of death including meeting the 
Supreme Being that created him, whether he stands in his 
favor or not, and death not resulting and then have this 
person returned at a later date to this instrument for the 
purpose of accomplishing the end that theretofore had 
failed, would not come within a lingering death? This was 
answered by the highest Court ot our land in the year 
1946, in the negative.

Can this honorable Court, as presently 
constituted, sixteen years later, say that death by 
electrocution in a penal institution, in the sovereign State 
o f Georgia, now constitutes cruel and unusual 
punishment and is a type of punishment prohibited by 
the same Eighth Amendment of the United States 
Constitution that existed in 1946?

Petitioner takes the position that the death 
penalty in no way can apply to the offense of rape. From 
his position the punishment of death for the crime of 
rape is too extensive of punishment and therefore comes



being with n t i ' e ' r ' f l ' 0" ac“ Pte<l by our Courts as

shouid co„;i*h; 0̂ ^ r L f frr e cw r itu,ion a- d

not seen nuoU™ e'from s7a,r'se,1SUPren,e C° urt has

Titto Williams vs. The Pen’nip ^1,!° J le case of Samuel

sentence the Judge discussed in nn ln3Posm8 the death 
upon which the Jurv had c Pen Court the evidence
evidence had been cmisideld i ? 2^- f atlng that the 
information obtained through" th ^  C o u rt?  addj,tionaI 
department and through other sources The Pr° batlon 
appealed to the United ct-itoJ °SrCes‘ The case was
violation o f due process f n t h a t T T *  C° Urt for 
allowed to examine thp + ^  P^ttioner was not
cross-examine the w itnessesV hn^103̂  evidence or to 
Justice Black in delivering n il g3Ve.thls evidence. Mr. 
stated the following: 8 6 opin,on of t}ns Court

“To deprive sentencing Judges of this kind nf 
in fo rm a tio n  w ouid u n d e rm in T  mode™



penological procedural policies that has been 
cautiously adopted throughout the nation after 
careful consideration and experimentation. We 
must recognize that most of the information 
now relied upon by Judges to guide them in the 
intelligent imposition of sentences should be 
unavailable if information were restricted to that 
given in open court by witnesses subject to 
cross-examination.”

Mr. Justice Black went on to say:
“The due process clause should not be treated as 
a device for freezing the evidential procedure of 
sentencing in the mold of trial procedure. So to 
treat the due process clause would hinder if not 
preclude all courts, state and federal, from 
making progressive efforts to improve the 
administration of criminal justice.”
It can be seen by Mr. Justice Black’s opinion in 

the Williams case that states must have a right and the 
power, within the confines of the Constitution of the 
United States of America, to deal with Criminal justice as 
their Legislatures deem best.

In the case of Laurence Aikin Jackson vs. Fred 
R. Dixon, 325 Federal 2d, page 573, the Appellant in his 
petition and on argument in the Ninth Circuit Court of 
Appeals contended that the carrying out of the death 
penalty would deprive him of due process and also that it 
would amount of cruel and ususual punishment in 
violation of the Eighth Amendment of the United States 
Constitution. In delivering the opinion, Circuit Judge 
Duniway stated:

“Traditionally the death penalty has been 
deemed an appropriate punishment for murder.” 

Circuit Judge Duniway went on to say:
“Here there is no suggestion as there was in 
certain of the cases above cited, that the method 
of administering of penalty is cruel and unusual. 
The contention is only that the penalty itself is 
of that character. This contention, in light of the 
foregoing authorities, we must reject. Jackson’s 
arguments, which attack the penalty as 
incompatible with modern concepts of justice,

( ir r r i



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would more properly be addressed to the 
California Legislature. It is not for us to write 
our personal views on the matter, whatever they 
may be, into the Constitution. We hold that if 
the State is free to find Jackson guilty of murder 
in the first degree, as Leland makes clear that it 
was this case, it does not violate the Eighth 
Amendment, made applicable to it by the 
Fourteenth Amendment, by imposing the death 
penalty upon him.”
I think Judge Duniway has made clear the 

position which we believe should be taken by this 
Honorable Court, that position being that regardless of 
our personal feelings toward the death penalty and 
regardless of whether we feel that a person deserves or 
does not deserve ultimate punishment that we must 
confine ourselves to the question of whether or not the 
death penalty is, or is not, prohibited by the Eighth 
Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of 
America. We think it goes without saying that any type 
of torture or lingering death that is calculated to put a 
person in misery before he died, is the type of death 
penalty outlawed and prohibited by the Eighth 
Amendment of the Constitution. Any type of death 
penalty, such as death by electrocution, by being shot, or 
by being put to death by gas, is the type of execution 
that is known to civilized men and is a type of execution 
that is constitutionally protected by the Eighth 
Amendment and has been constitutionally protected by 
the United States Supreme Court in former years.

We find it difficult in 1971 to say that death by 
electrocution is wrong now but was right in the year 
1958 and was right in 1879. The offense of murder, as 
the offense of rape, was wrong in 1879, it was wrong in 
1958, and is wrong in 1971. The punishment for those 
crimes has been the same for almost one hundred years 
and we can not see where the punishment should be 
deemed cruel and unusual.

Petitioner contends that the death penalty is 
cruel and unusual punishment and therefore should be 
eliminated because it violates the Eighth Amendment of 
the Constitution of the United States of America.

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Respondent respectfully directs the Court’s 
attention to a case decided by this Honorable Court on 
the 13th day oi January, 1947, which was a case of State 
of Louisiana ex rel. Willie Francis, Petitioner, vs. E. A1 
Resweber, Sheriff of the Parish of St. Martin, Louisiana, 
et al., 329 U.S. 459 through 481, 91 Lawyers Edition 
page 422, wherein petitioner Francis was convicted of the 
offense of murder and sentenced to die in the electric 
chair on the 3rd day of May, 1946, pursuant to a death 
warrant. On the 3rd day of May, 1946, Petitioner was 
prepared for execution and sat in the electric chair and 
the Executioner threw the switch but, presumably, 
because of some mechanical malfunction, the current did 
not come on and death did not result. Thereafter 
petitioner was removed from the electric chair and a new 
death warrant issued by the Governor of Louisiana fixing 
the date of execution for May 9, 1946.

After a refusal of an application to the Supreme 
Court of the State of Louisiana, petitioner brought his 
case before the United States Supreme Court alleging a 
denial of due process and also alleging cruel and unusual 
punishment. The denial of due process consisted of the 
violation of the Fifth Amendment which was double 
jeopardy and the cruel and unusual punishment consisted 
of the violation of the Eighth Amendment, cruel and 
unusual punishment, all as applied to the State of 
Louisiana through the Fourteenth Amendment.

In announcing the decision, which was joined in 
by the Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice 
Jackson, Mr. Justice Reed stated the following:

“Our minds rebel against permitting the same 
sovereignity to punish an accused twice for the
same offense ....  But where the accused
successfully seeks review of a conviction, there is
no double jeopardy upon a new tria l....  Even
when a state obtains a new trial after conviction 
because of errors, while an accused may be 
placed on trial a second time, it is not the sort of 
hardship to the accused that is forbidden by the
Fourteenth Amendment ....  As this is a
prosecution under State law, so far as double 
jeopardy is concerned, the Palco case is decisive.



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unusual. Tliis to include burning at the stake, ciucifixion, 
breaking on the wheel or the like.

The Court in, in re: Kemmler, Supra, further
stated:
“Punishments are cruel when they involve 
torture or a lingering death; but the punishment 
of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that 
word as used in the Constitution. It implies 
there something inhuman and barbarious, 
something more than mere extinguishment of
life.” . ,
The United States Supreme Court in the case ot 

Wallace Wilkerson vs. People of the United States in the 
Territory of Utah, 25 Lawyers Edition, page 345, 99 U.S. 
page 130, in reference to the death penalty, stated:

“Difficulty would attend the effort to define 
with exactness the extent of the constitutional 
provision which provides that cruel and unusual 
punishment shall not be inflicted; but it is safe 
to affirm that punishments of torture such as 
those mentioned by the commentator referred 
to, and all others in the same line of unnecessary 
cruelty, are forbidden by that Amendment to 
the Constitution.”
In the Wilkerson case the Court was concerned 

with the mode of punishment declared by the trial Court. 
The Defendant was on the 14th day of December next 
between the hours of 10:00 in the forenoon and 3:00 m 
the afternoon to be taken to a place certain and there 
publicly shot until dead. The Court in its opinion stated: 

“Cruel and unusual punishment is forbidden by 
the Constitution, but the authorities referred to 
are quite sufficient to show that the punishment 
of shooting as a mode of executing the death 
penalty for the crime of murder in the first 
degree is not included in that category^, witkin 
the meaning of the Eighth Amendment.
It can be seen that the question of cruel and 

unusual punishment dates back as far as the eighteen 
hundreds and the Supreme Court of these United States 
even then recognized that there was a difference m the 
mode of executing the death penalty and even then they

1



drew a distinction between the humane death and 
inhumane death such as torture or lingering death.

In the case of Trop vs. Dulles, 356 U.S. page 86,
2 Lawyers Edition 2, page 630, 78 Supreme Court 590, 
the Court in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Warren 
joined in by Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. 
Justice Whitaker, stated the following:

“At the outset, let us put to one side the death 
penalty as an index of the Constitutional limit 
on punishment. Whatever the argument may be 
against capital punishment, both on moral 
grounds and the terms of accomplishing the 
purpose of punishment; and they are forceful, 
the death  penalty has been employed 
throughout our history, and, in a day when it is 
still widely accepted, it can not be said to violate 
the Constitutional concept of cruelty. But it is 
equally plain that the existence of all death 
penalties is not a license to the Government to 
devise any punishment short of death within the 
limit of its imagination.”
“The exact scope of the constitution phrase 

‘cruel and unusual’ has not been detailed by this Court. 
But the basic policy reflected in these words is firmly 
established in the Anglo-American tradition of criminal 
iustice The phrase in our Constitution was taken directly 
from the English Declaration of Rights of 1688 and the 
principle it represents can be traced back to the Magna 
Carta. The basic concept underlying the Eighth 
Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of man. 
While the State has the power of punish, the Amendment 
stands to assure that this power be exercised within the
limits of civilized standards. 1Qro

The Trop case was decided March 31, IVjo , 
almost one hundred years after the Wilkerson case was 
decided. The concept of the United States Court with 
regards to the death penalty, in the late eighteen 
hundreds and the middle nineteen hundreds has not 
varied or changed. The concept of the death penalty as 
being cruel and unusual punishment is only limited by 
the execution of that death penalty. The Courts through



8? linns 13 through 23). Mrs. Lanier stated she had 
washed the robe after she had taken it off of Mrs. Rose.

<Tr- 0 fE ^ Û » ^ o f  the Chad,an,

a  s che s m - i i r  p ,
and there he had observed Mrs. Rose, that she was very 
unset she had tears in her eyes and she was very 

P t;’ | ('Tr of E. Page 84 lines 1 through -3). He
testified upon entering the bedroom that 
disarranged there was dirt on the sheet, the pillows we 
pushed off the side of the bed, there was a large spot o 
blood on the floor near the bed and there was P^e straw 
and other debris in the room. (Tr. of E. page 85, lines 9
through IT). Joseph Doo|an a local obstetrician and
gynecologist having been sworn testified that he 
examined Mrs. Rose at approximately 10.30 tci 11.00 
o’clock on the 3rd day of October, 1968, and ms 
examination revealed several tissues in the anterior of the 
throat were very tender of palpation. There was an 
abrasion over the right clavicle or the right collar bone 

tnitherewere superficial lacerations of the nght forearm 
and the right palm of the right hand. There was also an 
abrasion on the anterior surface of the right tibia or the 
right lower leg. On pelvic examination there was a sma 
amount of blood in the vagina and the coccyx or tail
bone which was tender on palpation. f . ,

Mr Leman Alden Lanier, in essence, testified
that he along with other neighbors found the petitioner 
hiding in his garage at which time petitioner ran, t y 
followed him and petitioner was captured approximately
one block behind his garage. nffirpr for theSet James Stevens, Identification Officer tor me
rhatham County Police Department testified, in essence, 
thsrt* betook* cert a in prints'  ̂from the victim’s house and 
also the known prints of petitioner and sent these print 
t  the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fingerprint 
Department, for purposes of identification f

Robert J. Hazen, Agent, Federal Bureau ot 
Investigation testified, in essence, that he received



~

known prints of petitioner and the latent prints 
submitted by Sgt. Stevens, made a comparison and the 
known prints of Lucious Jackson were matched with the
latent prints taken from the victim’s house. ,

The Defendant did not put up any defense and
did not take the stand to testify in Ins own bel™“ - .

Issue to be decided by this Honorable Court is 
the punishment of death for the offense °  rape in 
violation of the Eighth Amendment of he 
Constitution which calls for cruel and unusual
punishment.

ARGUMENT AND LAW 
Respondent contends that the death Pe™ X 

should be kept in force and effect and in support of this 
position directs this Honorable Court t0 an oid case 
decided by the United States Supreme Court in the 
matter of William Kemmler, 34 Lawyers Edition, pag
S19 136 U.S. 436, 447, wherein the Court held.

’ “The provision in reference to cruel and unusua 
punishment taken from the well-known Act of 
Parliament of 1688, entitled ’an Act declaring 
the rights and liberties of the Subject, and 
Settling the Session of the Crown in which, 
a fte r  rehearsing the various  ̂grounds of 
grievances and among others, that excessive b 
hath been required of yersons committed 
S i n a i  c a s S  to elude £ e  benefit of the laws 
made for the liberty ®f the sut>jects, and 
excessive fines have been imposed; and illegal 
a id  crael punishment inflicted;' it is declared 
that ‘excessive bail ought not to be required, no 
excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual

The C o u r ̂ a  ft e r^d eel a ring" t hi s Act of Parliament went on 
further to state that the language used in the Constitution 
of the State of New York, from which this case came,ŵas* intended particularly to operate upon th^ Legislature

the State and while the languige oi the Lonstiiuuon 
r tl p qtate of New York was sinilar to the declaration 

of tehts ? S r e d  to that the Cotrts of the State o New 
York had the right to declare punishment cruel and

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that crime. To cloud the issues w in , racial overtones 

—  man hf  strived
for equality and equality he shouldrece ve but mere ^

to be decided on a racial basis lnstcaa 01

a legal b This honorable Court through! the, centuries has 
i in ti1P rit'nth nenaltv in cases of murder and in casts

by any
Cour? regardless whether it is trial Court m the swantpy 
lands of the State of Georgia or Appellate Court in me 
State of New York, or the highest Court in our land. No 
dec sion can ever be rendered because of the personal

S t a r  felony f the" *

and ask that the conviction of Lucious Jackson for the 
offense of rape and his sentence to death be upheld by 
this Honorable Court.

Respectfully submitted,

D i s r a c y / ^ f T O R l / H Y , E A S T E R N  

J U D I C I A L  C 1 R C U I T  q/ G E O R G I A

D X t r i ct A t t o r n e y ,
Eastern JudiciaPGircuit of Georgia

Post Office Address:
402 Courthouse Building 
Savannah, Georgia 31401

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