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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- be22e3e4-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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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 May 12, 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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Black Panther Case Prompts LDF to Seek Supreme Court Review of New York Bail System

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