Comparing The Scottsboro Boys And The Trial Of Powell V. Alabama

Injustice is seen a lot in this world whether it is racial, healthcare, gender inequality, or even economic injustice but today we will be focusing on the Scottsboro boys and the trial of Powell vs Alabama. In the 1930’s, nine young African American teenagers as young as 13 years old were falsely accused of rape and eight were sentenced to prison over a crime they did not commit. Although they were eventually released after years, not because of insufficient evidence but because they served a significant amount of time in prison as minors and kept having to retrial, it still does not distract from the fact it took 82 years to clear their names over a crime they did not commit and subsequently ruined their reputation and lives while they were

documents such as https://www.rjaffelaw.com/documents/Jaffe_History_Corrected_March_2014.pdf and https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/scottsboronine-black-youth-ar For example, the end of the first paragraph of rjaffelaw says, “A jury con- victed the youths simply because of their race at a time when no jury composed of all white males in a deep Southern state would reject a white woman’s uncorrobo- rated and unquestionably false testimony against a person of color no matter how unjust and absurd — even while the whole world watched”. This piece of information shows injustice against the boys because they were falsely accused based on race. But pbs org timeline during the trial “April 6: Ruby Bates appears as a surprise witness for the defense, denying that any rape occurred and testifying that she was with Victoria Price for the whole train ride. Her assertion that she and Price were with boyfriends the night before explains the presence of semen in their vaginas. On the stand, Dr. Bridges admits that the sperm found in his examination were non-motile. ” showing even after one of the accusers took back her claim and gave a motive to where she was proving the Scottsboro boys were innocent. It still took 82 years to drop

News sources like https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/justice/alabama-scottsboro-pardons/index.html# brings up the fact that the boys pardons remedied a wrongdoing for racial and social injustice. In the article, it states, “Thursday’s pardons “remedied a wrongdoing of social and racial injustice,” said Eddie Cook, assistant director for the board, in an interview with CNN.” But also “It has taken 82 years to clear the names of the Scottsboro Boys,” said Sheila Washington, founder and director of the Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural “. Social and racial injustice is a major problem in this world solely because of cases like this. The news coverage for this case at the time was not fair at all compared to the coverage in the past 20 years, but that was because of how biased everyone was compared to the logic people have now. The seriousness of this injustice on a scale from 1-10 is a 10. It was so many times the case could have been dropped, but because of the defendant's skin color, the judges, officers, juries, majority of the protesters chose to turn a blind eye. The public defender board brings up a key piece that shows the seriousness of the unjustness of the case http://lpdb.la.gov/Serving%20The%20Public/Court%20Decisions/Powell%20v.%20Alabama%20(1932).php states “ The Court overturned the convictions of the young men, noting that "[n]o attempt was