Seven for Seven

Tear gas was used, four officers were injured, twelve marchers were locked up, several banners demanding "Freedom for the Scottsboro Boys" were torn down and confiscated when Washington police drove 100 demonstrators of the International Labor Defense off the Capitol Plaza one forenoon last week. Undisturbed by the tumult outside, inside the Capitol in the shadowy chambers of the Supreme Court nine old white men reviewed the case of seven young Negroes convicted at Scottsboro, Ala., spring before last, of raping two white girl hoboes in a box car. Political libertarians called the death sentences "legal lynching," but Alabama's Supreme Court had upheld the verdict of the lower bench. Gratified were Liberals when the U. S. Supreme Court handed down its opinion. Seven-to-two it decided that the Scottsboro Negroes, "young, illiterate, ignorant," had not had adequate legal representation at their original trial, were entitled to another. "Even intelligent persons," said Associate Justice George Sutherland, writing the Court's majority opinion, "cannot guide themselves through the intricacies of legal procedure and protect their rights." The opinion went further to brand the trial, with its militia guardsmen, court-appointed defense and surcharged atmosphere, as "a gesture." Kentucky-born Justice McReynolds was joined by Justice Butler in dissent.

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