Black Panther Case Prompts LDF to Seek Supreme Court Review of New York Bail System

Press Release
December 13, 1969

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Black Panther Case Prompts LDF to Seek Supreme Court Review of New York Bail System preview

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  • Press Releases, Volume 6. Black Panther Case Prompts LDF to Seek Supreme Court Review of New York Bail System, 1969. be22e3e4-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/b0033e43-2b47-443d-8340-4bdd509eb277/black-panther-case-prompts-ldf-to-seek-supreme-court-review-of-new-york-bail-system. Accessed November 23, 2025.

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    - ean 
6* . 

President 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 
PRESS RELEASE Director Counsel 

egal efense und Jack Greenberg 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. gies ib peer y 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 jesse DeVore, Jr. NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

FOR RELEASE 

SATURDAY 
December 13, 1969 

BLACK PANTHER CASE PROMPTS 
LDF TO SEEK SUPREME COURT 
REVIEW OF NEW YORK 
BAIL SYSTEM 

WASHINGTON, D.C.---Release of 13 members of the Black Panther Party 

--confined to New York City jails since last April--was sought from 

the U.S. Supreme Court this week. 

Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 

(LDF) assert that this case "represents a particularly blatant 

example of the perversion of the money bail system." 

In this instance, they add, in a friend of the court brief, the 

bail system "serves the purpose of preventive detention of the 

allegedly dangerous." 

That system was originally intended to "increase the likelihood 

of appearance at trial," the attorneys argue. 

By detaining the Panthers on prohibitively high bail, the LDF 

stresses, because of their alleged dangerousness, New York is 

violating their rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. 

Ten of the 13 Panthers are being held on bails of $100,000 each. 

New York's bail system, the LDF says, arbitrarily and 

irrationally confines the Panthers, and others similarly situated, 

because of their poverty. 

This case, Lumumba Abdul Shakur _v. Commissioner of Corrections 

George F. McGrath, marks the first time the LDF--the nation's 

largest private civil rights and poverty law organization--has gone 

to the U.S. Supreme Court in behalf of the Panther Party. 

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