Just Mercy (46 page)
Authors: Bryan Stevenson
4
It wasn’t until 1967 …
When the Virginia legislature passed the Racial Integrity Act in 1924, authorizing the forced sterilization of black women thought to be defective or dangerous and criminalizing marriage between a black person and white person, people in Caroline County took these pronouncements very seriously. Decades later, when a young white man, Richard Loving, fell in love with a black woman named Mildred Jeter, the young couple decided to get married after learning that Mildred was pregnant. They went to Washington, D.C., to “get legal,” knowing that it wouldn’t be possible in Virginia. They tried to stay away but got homesick and returned to Caroline County after the wedding to be near their families. Word about the marriage got out, and some weeks later the sheriff and several armed deputies stormed into their home in the middle of the night to arrest Richard and Mildred for miscegenation. Jailed and humiliated, they were forced to plead guilty and were told that they should be grateful that their prison sentences would be suspended as long as they agreed to leave the county and not return for “at least twenty-five years.” They fled the state again but this time decided to fight the law in court with a lawsuit filed with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1967, after years of defeats in lower courts, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down miscegenation laws, declaring them unconstitutional.
5
“The legislature shall never pass any law”…
Even though the restriction could not be enforced under federal law, the state ban on interracial marriage in Alabama continued into the twenty-first century. In 2000, reformers finally had the votes to get the issue on the statewide ballot, where a majority of voters chose to eliminate the ban, although 41 percent voted to keep it. A 2011 poll of Mississippi Republicans found that 46 percent supported a legal ban on interracial marriage, 40 percent opposed such a ban, and 14 percent were undecided.
6
Nearly a dozen people had been lynched …
The names of the people
lynched are as follows: October 13, 1892: Burrell Jones, Moses Jones/Johnson, Jim Packard, and one unknown (brother of Jim Packard). Tuskegee University, “Record of Lynchings in Alabama from 1871 to 1920,” compiled for the Alabama Department of Archives and History by the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Alabama Dept. of Archives and History Digital Collections, available at
http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/singleitem/collection/voices/id/2516
, accesssed September 18, 2009; also, “Four Negroes Lynched,”
New York Times
(October 14, 1892); Stewart Tolnay, compiler, “NAACP Lynching Records,” Historical American Lynching Data Collection Project, available at
http://people.uncw.edu/hinese/HAL/HAL%20Web%20Page.htm#Project%20HAL
, accessed April 30, 2014.
October 30, 1892: Allen Parker. Tuskegee University Archives; Tolnay, “NAACP Lynching Records.”
August 30, 1897: Jack Pharr. Tuskegee University Archives; Tolnay, “NAACP Lynching Records.”
September 2, 1897: Unknown. Tuskegee University Archives.
August 23, 1905: Oliver Latt. Tuskegee University Archives.
February 7, 1909: Will Parker. Tuskegee University Archives.
August 9, 1915: James Fox. Tuskegee University Archives; “Negro Lynched for Attacking Officer,”
Montgomery Advertiser
(August 10, 1915). Tuskegee University Archives; Tolnay, “NAACP Lynching Records.”
August 9, 1943: Willie Lee Cooper. “NAACP Describes Alabama’s Willie Lee Case as Lynching,”
Journal and Guide
(September 8, 1943); “NAACP Claims Man Lynched in Alabama,”
Bee
(September 26, 1943); “Ala. Workman ‘Lynched’ After Quitting Job,”
Afro-American
(September 18, 1943). Tuskegee University Archives.
May 7, 1954: Russell Charley. “Violence Flares in Dixie,”
Pittsburgh Courier
(June 5, 1954); “Suspect Lynching in Ala. Town,”
Chicago Defender
(June 12, 1954); “Hint Love Rivalry Led to Lynching,”
Chicago Defender
(June 19, 1954); “NAACP Probes ’Bama Lynching,”
Pittsburgh Courier
(June 26, 1954). Tuskegee University Archives.
1
Suicide, prisoner-on-prisoner violence …
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that throughout the 1980s, several hundred incarcerated individuals died each year of suicide, homicide, and other “unknown” reasons. Christopher J. Mumola, “Suicide and Homicide in State Prisons and Local Jails,” Bureau of Justice Statistics (August 2005), available at
www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1126
, accessed April 30, 2014; Lawrence A. Greenfield, “Prisons and Prisoners
in the United States,” Bureau of Justice Statistics (April 1992), available at
www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1392
.
2
I found Bureau of Justice statistics …
In 1978, black people were eight times more likely than whites to be killed by police officers. Jodi M. Brown and Patrick A. Langan, “Policing and Homicide, 1976-1998: Justifiable Homicide by Police, Police Officers Murdered by Felons,” Bureau of Justice Statistics (March 2001), available at
www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=829
, accessed April 30, 2014.
3
By the end of the twentieth century …
By 1998, black people were still four times more likely to be killed by the police than white people. Brown and Langan, “Policing and Homicide, 1976–1998.”
4
the problem would get worse …
In states with “Stand Your Ground” laws, the rate of “justifiable” homicides of blacks more than doubled between 2005 and 2011, the period when the majority of these laws were enacted. The rate of such homicides against whites also rose, but only slightly, and the homicide rate against whites was much lower to begin with. “Shoot First: ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws and Their Effect on Violent Crime and the Criminal Justice System,” joint press release from the National Urban League, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and
VoteVets.org
(September 2013), available at
http://nul.iamempowered.com/content/mayors-against-illegal-guns-national-urban-league-votevets-release-report-showing-stand-your
, accessed April 30, 2014.
1
“We’re going to keep all you niggers”…
McMillian v. Johnson
, Case No. 93-A-699-N, P. Exh. 12, Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Opposition to Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment (1994).
2
“At 8:40
P.M.
, a third charge of electricity”…
Glass v. Louisiana
, 471 U.S. 1080 (1985), denying cert. to 455 So.2d 659 (La. 1984) (J. Brennan, dissenting).
3
In 1987, all forty …
Ruth E. Friedman, “Statistics and Death: The Conspicuous Role of Race Bias in the Administration of Death Penalty,”
Berkeley Journal of African-American Law and Policy
4 (1999): 75. See also Danielle L. McGuire and John Dittmer,
Freedom Rights: New Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement
(Lexington: University of Kentucky, 2011).
4
In 1945, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas statute …
Akins v. Texas
, 325 U.S. 398 (1945).
5
Local jury commissions used statutory requirements …
David Cole, “Judgment and Discrimination,” in
No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System
(New York: New Press, 1999), 101–31.
6
In the 1970s, the Supreme Court ruled …
Duren v. Missouri
, 439 U.S. 357 (1979);
Taylor v
.
Louisiana
, 419 U.S. 522 (1975).
7
In the mid-1960s, the Court held …
Swain v
.
Alabama
, 380 U.S. 202 (1965).
8
The practice of striking all …
“Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy,” Equal Justice Initiative (2009), available at
www.eji.org/files/EJI%20Race%20and%20Jury%20Report.pdf
, accessed April 30, 2014.
1
In 91 percent of these cases …
“The Death Penalty in Alabama: Judge Override,” Equal Justice Initiative (2011), 4, available at
http://eji.org/eji/files/Override_Report.pdf
, accessed April 30, 2014.
2
Alabama elects all of its judges …
Billy Corriher, “Partisan Judicial Elections and the Distorting Influence of Campaign Cash,” Center for American Progress (October 25, 2012), available at
www.americanprogress.org/issues/civil-liberties/report/2012/10/25/42895/partisan-judicial-elections-and-the-distorting-influence-of-campaign-cash/
, accessed July 8, 2013.
3
Judge overrides are an incredibly potent …
In November 2013, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a blistering critique of Alabama’s continued use of judicial override to impose death sentences in a dissent from the Court’s decision to not review the issue. Joined by Justice Breyer, the Justices found serious constitutional defects in both the politics surrounding judge override and the way it undermines the role of the jury.
Woodward v. Alabama
(2013).
4
it’s not surprising that judge overrides …
“The Death Penalty in Alabama,” 5.
5
As peculiar as the practice is …
Harris v. Alabama
, 513 U.S. 504 (1995);
Spaziano v
.
Florida
, 468 U.S. 447 (1984).
6
Mr. Dunkins suffered from intellectual disabilities …
See
Penry v
.
Lynaugh
, 492 U.S. 302 (1989).
7
Thirteen years later …
Atkins v. Virginia
, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), explaining that a national consensus had been reached against executing the mentally ill after state legislatures adopted new laws limiting the practice following
Penry
.
8
They killed him …
Peter Applebome, “2 Electric Jolts in Alabama Execution,”
New York Times
(July 15, 1989), available at
www.nytimes.com/1989/07/15/us/2-electric-jolts-in-alabama-execution.html
, accessed April 30, 2014; see also “Two Attempts at Execution Kill Dunkins,”
Gadsden Times
(July 14, 1989), available at
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=02cfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3NQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3122%2C1675665
, accessed April 30, 2014.
9
The Court decided to bar claims …
Rose v
.
Lundy
, 455 U.S. 509 (1982).
10
the Court rejected a constitutional challenge …
Stanford v. Kentucky
, 492 U.S. 361 (1989);
Penry
, 492 U.S. at 305;
McCleskey v
.
Kemp
, 481 U.S. 279 (1987).
11
“Let’s get on with it”…
Bryan Stevenson, “The Hanging Judges,”
The Nation
(October 14, 1996), 12.
12
“Mr. Stevenson, I’m calling to let you know”…
Richardson v
.
Thigpen
, 492 U.S. 934 (1989).
13
I thought about the botched execution …
Applebome, “2 Electric Jolts in Alabama Execution.”
1
Monroe County is a “dry county”…
Monroe County is now technically considered “moist.” The city of Monroeville and Frisco have approved laws permitting the sale of some alcoholic beverages.
1
Alabama had more juveniles sentenced to death …
Victor L. Streib,
Death Penalty for Juveniles
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987).
2
While the Supreme Court had upheld …
Stanford v
.
Kentucky
, 492 U.S. 361 (1989);
Thompson v
.
Oklahoma
, 487 U.S. 815 (1988);
Wilkins v. Missouri
was consolidated with the
Stanford
decision.
1
We found court records revealing …
Giglio v. United States
, 405 U.S. 150 (1972);
Mooney v
.
Holohan
, 294 U.S. 103 (1935).
2
Some states authorized the family …
Peggy M. Tobolowsky, “Victim Participation in the Criminal Justice Process: Fifteen Years after the President’s Task Force on Victims of Crime,”
New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement
25 (1999): 21, available at
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/nejccc25&div=7&g_sent=1&collection=journals
, accessed April 30, 2014.
3
Thirty-six states enacted laws …
Booth v
.
Maryland
, 482 U.S. 496, 509n12 (1987).
4
The Court agreed …
Booth v
.
Maryland
, 482 U.S. 496, 506n8 (“We are troubled by the implication that defendants whose victims were assets to their community are more deserving of punishment than those whose victims are perceived to be less worthy”).
5
The Court’s decision was widely criticized …
Payne v. Tennessee
, 501 U.S. 808, 827 (1991) (“A State may legitimately conclude that evidence about the victim and about the impact of the murder on the victim’s family is relevant to the jury’s decision as to whether or not the death penalty should be imposed”).
