The Background - Death Row Cases in the Supreme Court

    ey 
President 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

egal efense und Jack Groonbens 
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 

Wednesday, February 26, 1969 

THE BACKGROUND 

The California death cases of Robert Anderson and Frederick 

Saterfield, which were taken to the U.S. Supreme Court today, and the 

case of William Maxwell, which will be argued next Tuesday (March 4) ia 

are the latest developments in the LDF's national drive to end capital 

punishment. 

The LDF originally became involved with this issue because of the 

great severity with which the death penalty falls on black people. 

(See “Discrimination in Application of the Death Penalty," p.114, of 

VARIETIES OF ATTACK ON THE DEATH PENALTY herewith.) 

This four-year LDF campaign resulted in 1968 being the first year 

in American history during which no executions took place. 

LDF attorneys are now representing more than half the 476 persons 

awaiting execution across the nation. 

Jack Greenberg, LDF director-counsel, said that in excess of 

$300,000.00 has been spent to date, and an additional $100,000.00 

will be spent by the end of 1969. 

Mr. Greenberg stressed that "if the goal of this litigation is 

achieved, we will have spared a few lives that, thereafter, will be 

spent in prisons. We will perhaps make it possible, in some cases, 

for men whose innocence is established years from now to go free. 

"Most important of all, we may make a small contribution to 

advancing the day when man's problems are dealt with by reason and 

persuasion and not by brute force." 

Accordingly, LDF attorneys have attacked the death penalty in the 

way it is administered, in every way that they as lawyers for con- 

demned men can, finding the present process arbitrary, unfair and 

cruel. 

LDF attorneys have challenged capital punishment throughout the 

country on the grounds that: 

1) the law provides no legal standards for the choice between 

life and death, leaving the decision in the unfettered and 

arbitrary discretion of the jury. 

25 ) 



LDF 

lawyerless in the 

We therefore 

race in behalf of 

under the Federal 

administration of 

-3- February 26, 1969 

case of death. 

took action (and will continue) without regard to 

men on death row across the country, challenging 

Constitution the most egregious failures in the 

capital punishment. 

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