Preston Cobb to Get New Georgia Trial

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- Press Releases
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- LDF
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- e93b382d-b892-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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Press Releases, Volume 5. Preston Cobb to Get New Georgia Trial, 1967. e93b382d-b892-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/f0edfcd8-9405-4e81-952c-0f9e8c2e1721/preston-cobb-to-get-new-georgia-trial. Accessed November 23, 2025.

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    egal ‘efense lund PRESS RELEASE 

President 
Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

Director-Counsel 
Jack Greenberg 

Director, Public Relations 
FOR RELEASE 

Jesse DeVore, Jr. 
NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

FR: NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. 4, A a 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 « JUdson 6.8397 OCtOber 13, 1967 

Y> PRESTON COBB TO GET 
NEW GEORGIA TRIAL 

LDF Will Continue Representation | 

WASHINGTON---The U.S. Supreme Court this week reversed the Georgia 
life sentence against Preston Cobb, a case that stirred international 
concern when Cobb was sentenced to death in 1961 at the age of 15. 

} 

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) attorneys | 
won the case on grounds that racial discriminaticn was used in com- 
posing Cobb's Jasper County, Ga., jury. 

The young man must still face the charge of murder; however the | 
new jury will be drawn from an integrated panel, 

LDF attorneys argued in ¢ 
Cobb was tried and indicted by 
tically excluded. 

rief to the Supreme Court that 
s from which Negroes were systema- 

They added that when Negroes were included on jury lists in 
Jasper and Bibb Counties, Ga,, it was merely token, The jury lists, 
the attorneys maintained, contained racial identifications. 

Young Cobb was originally indicted on the charge of murder by 
the Jasper County grand jury in 1961. 

He was tried in the Superior Court of Jasper County that year, 
found guilty, and sentenced to death. 

That ruling was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Georgia. 

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overruled in 1964 on the 
ground that Negroes had been systematically excluded from the grand 
jury that indicted Mr, Cobb and from the petit jury that tried him. 

He was reindicted by the Jasper County grand jury in February of 
1965, A motion for change of venue was granted and petitioner was 
tried before a petit jury in Bibb County, 

He was found guilty, but the jury returned a recommendation of 
mercy; petitioner was then sentenced to life imprisonment, 

On appeal the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Cobb's conviction. 

-30-

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Preston Cobb to Get New Georgia Trial

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