Fund Petitions for Supreme Court Review of Negro's 1962 Rape Conviction in Arkansas

    10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 
JUdson 6-8397 

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE tea 

De. Allan Knight Chalmers August "9, 1965 
Director-Counsel 

Jack Greenberg 

FUND PETITIONS FOR SUPREME COURT REVIEW 
OF NEGRO'S 1962 RAPE CONVICTION IN ARKANSAS 

Sentenced to Death for Rape of White Woman in 1961 

WASHINGTON ,D.C.--NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund 

lawyers today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case of 

a young Negro sentenced to die for the 1961 rape of a white woman 

in Arkansas. 

William L. Maxwell was convicted by a Garland County Circuit 

Court jury in April, 1962. The jury condemned him to death. The 

State Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence. 

Since then, Maxwell's execution has been stayed several times 

to permit Legal Defense Fund appeals to a Federal District Court 

and the U.S. Eighth Circuit of Appeals. Both appeals were denied, 

although one Court of Appeals Judge dissented. 

The Court of Appeals last month granted a stay of execution 
pe? 

pending a determination by the Supreme Court. é 

The Legal Defense Fund appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is 

based on three allegations. 

1. Maxwell was held incommunicado while polce made an 

illegal search of his home to obtain evidence. 

2. The death penalty for rape is a cruel and unjust 

punishment, and is applied in a racially 

discriminatory manner to execute Negroes convicted? 

of raping white women. 

3. Negroes were excluded from the jury which convicted 

him. 

The Legal Defense Fund petition contends that police returned 

to Maxwell's home at 5 a.m. after taking him into custody cerlier 

that morning. The police,who were admitted to the home by 

Maxwell's mother, took a jacket belonging to the suspect. $ 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 Seo 



» FUND PETITIONS FOR SUPREME COURT REVIEW Page 2 a 
OF NEGRO'S 1962’ RAPE.CONVICTION IN ARKANSAS ». August 95196! 

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Although the police had no search warrant, Mrs. Maxwell * 

admitted them to the house. She testified at a later hearing 

that she didn't ask the officers for a warrant because she "didn't 

know." 

There was testimony at Maxwell's trial about laboratory tests 

ofs Gbers from the jacket. 

The petition also alleges that capital punishment for a 

crime in which no life has been taken is a violation of 

constitutional prohibitions against "cruel and unusual punishment ee? 

In a 50-year period beginning in 1913, the petition alleges, 

21 men have been executed in Arkansas for rape, of these, 19 were 

Negroes. In all 21 cases the victims were white women. 

Under Arkansas law, the petition states, only qualified 

electors who have paid a poll tax were eligible to serve on juries 

at the time of Maxwell's trial. 

The Legal Defense Fund contends thet there was discrimination 

in the way the jury lists were compiled because the poll tax record 

used to certify the eligibility of jurors contained racial 

designations. = ® 

If the Supreme Court decides to review the case, it will be 

“heard in its Fall term. 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys involved are Jack Greenberg 

und Director-Counsel; James M. Nabritt, III, Michael Meltsner, 

‘Leroy D. Clark and Frank H. Heffron of the Fund's New York staff; 
Sek 
Mccorge Howard, Jr., of Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Harold B. Anderson o 2 

A ¢ 
eLittle Rock, Arkansas and Anthony G. Amsterdam of Philadelphia, 
? 

“Pennsylvania. 

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* NOTE EDITORS: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. . 

and the NAACP have been two separate, but cooperating organizations 
_ Since 1939. Please refer to the Legal Defense Fund in any coverage 
. of this litigation. ae Ged 

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