Sumter County Board of Education v. Alabama State Tenure Commission Court Opinion

    (s \) 
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President 

Hon, Francis E. Rivers 

egal fefense und Jack Greenberg 
FOR RELEASE Director, Public Relations 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. THURSDAY Jones DeVure, Jr. 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

March 30, 1967 

LDF ASKS SUPREME COURT TO 
REVIEW NASHVILLE TENN. 
POLICE PRACTICES 

Escobedo v. Illinois Cited 

QUESTION PRESENTED: Did the insistence by the police that a l6-year- 
old boy speak words spoken by a rapist 8 months 
earlier violate the Constitution when the police 
failed to provide an attorney, or hold a line-up, 
or take steps to assure an objective, impartial 
identification of his voice? 

WASHINGTON---The U.S. Supreme Court was asked today by the NAACP Legal 
Defense and Educational Fund, Inc, (LDF) to reverse a 20-year rape 
sentence based on the repetition of five words, uttered eight months 
earlier, 

Sixteen-year-old Archie Nathaniel Biggers of Nashville, Tennessee, 
was arrested on August 17, 1965 and allegedly identified by a woman as 
the man who attempted to rape her the night before. 

Yet, young Biggers was never tried on this charge. 

Later, the same day, another woman, Mrs, Margaret Beamer, was 
brought to police headquarters to “look at'a suspect." 

Mrs. Beamer had been raped on the night of January 22, 1965--eight 
months earlier, She had been accosted in a dark hallway and taken to 
a nearby patch of woods where the crime took place. 

Neither Mrs, Beamer, nor her daughter, who approached the rapist 
in the hallway before being ordered away by her mother, could identify 
or describe the rapist at that time, 

The case lay dormant for lack of clues. 

Mrs. Beamer saw young Biggers for the first time at the police 
station on August 17th. He was guarded by five officers, 

Neither the youth's parents nor relatives were present, nor had 
they been notified of what was taking place. The boy had no lawyer. 
No line-up or alternative procedure was utilized by police. 

The LDF attorneys argue in their brief that the police station 
identification without a line-up and without Biggers' lawyer was unduly 
suggestive. 

They further argue that, if Biggers had had a lawyer present, he 
could, in the youth's behalf, have "questioned the prosecutrix before 
she placed herself in the position of making a positive identification." 

The “mere presence" of an attorney might possibly have served to 
counterbalance that of the police, the LDF attorneys suggest. 

The police then asked Biggers to say: “Shut up, or I'll kill you." 

"From the sound of these few words,..spoken eight months earlier 
during events which lasted from 15 to 30 minutes at most," Mrs, Beamer 
identified young Biggers as "the man who had raped her," the LDF asserts 

LDF attorneys handling the case include Director-Counsel Jack 
Greenberg and Michael Meltsner of New York City; Anthony G, Amsterdam 
of Philadelphia; Avon N, Williams and Z, Alexander of Nashville. John 

ees Howland of New York City was of counsel. 

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