Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Scottsboro Trial

Rabina Mainali
Sign 111
Dr. Dulan
3 November, 2015
Witnesses of the Scottsboro trials
The Scottsboro trials came about during the year 1931 when Great Depression had hit the South hard. In search of work several individuals boarded a freight train from Chattanooga to Memphis, Tennessee not knowing their future ahead wasn’t so bright. While in the train a white man stepped on a black man’s hand, later identified as belonging to Haywood Patterson. A fight between the white youths and Patterson’s Negros friends broke out as the train started to leave the town of Stevenson. The black boys were able to push all but one white person out of the train as it started catching speed. The injured boys that were pushed out of the train went to the sheriff’s

The doctors who examined both Victoria Price and Ruby Bates less than two hours after the rape, were next in line to share the medical reports to the courtroom. Both Dr. Lynch and Dr. R.R. Bridges testified that the women were calm and had no sign of physical violence that indicated they had been raped by multiple men. Additionally, they also acknowledged that a small quantity of semen had been found in the girl’s vagina and were non-motile in both of them, which is surprising because normal sperm “lived from twelve hours to two days” (Carter 213). At the cross-examination with Dr. Bridges in the second trial, Leibowitz was able to prove the girls were both “composed and calm” free of vaginal damage. Dr. Lynch however didn’t give an official testimony in the court stand because if he feared he would “never be able to go back into Jackson County” and his life would be endangered. He did talk to Judge Horton in private and told him “he did not believe the girls had been raped [and] was convinced [they] were lying as they were not even red” (Carter 214). At the end of the trails the boys were found guilty again, as the jury had reached a verdict without looking at the clear reports provided by the doctors. Seven months later Judge Horton looking past the “political suicide”, overturned the verdict and ordered a new trial for the Scottsboro Boys. Not only did he turn against his own race he also ended his own career as a result of his actions. He chose the moral thing to do even if it came with sacrifices he had to make. Judge Horton looked at