- Person
- Samuel Leibowitz
- Lived
- 1893–1978
- Field
- Criminal law
- From
- Romanian-American
The story
In the spring of 1933 the Scottsboro case moved to Decatur, Alabama, for the retrial of Haywood Patterson, the first of nine young Black men falsely accused of rape to be tried again after the US Supreme Court overturned their convictions. Samuel Leibowitz, the New York lawyer leading the defence, was a Jew from the North hired by a Communist-affiliated group, and many in the courtroom resented him from the start.
He quickly became an object of loathing in the town when he opened by challenging the exclusion of Black citizens from Alabama's jury rolls. After his tough cross-examination of the accuser, Victoria Price, he received death threats. A national reporter overheard people saying it would be a wonder if he got out alive. Five uniformed National Guardsmen were assigned to protect him, with another 150 ready to defend against a possible lynch mob. Their captain promised Judge James Horton that he would protect Leibowitz and the defendants as long as he had ammunition or a man alive, and when he learned that a group was coming to deal with Leibowitz, he raised the drawbridge over the Tennessee River to keep them out.
The prosecution also appealed to prejudice. In his closing argument one prosecutor asked the jurors whether justice in Alabama would be bought and sold with "Jew money from New York". Leibowitz answered that he was defending the young men without a fee and paying his own wife's expenses, and called on the jury to judge the evidence.
When the jury still returned a guilty verdict, Leibowitz compared it to "spitting on the tomb of Abraham Lincoln". Back in New York, he vowed to defend the young men "until hell freezes over", telling audiences of thousands he would keep taking the case to the US Supreme Court until Alabama gave up. He returned to Decatur that November for further trials, this time with two New York police officers sent by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to guard him.
His courage won his clients' devotion. Haywood Patterson said of him, "I love him more than life itself." Leibowitz's persistence carried the case back to Washington, where in 1935 the Supreme Court ruled in Norris v. Alabama that keeping Black citizens off juries was unconstitutional.
Why it matters
Leibowitz's refusal to be intimidated kept the Scottsboro case alive until the Supreme Court struck down Alabama's all-white juries.
About Samuel Leibowitz
Romanian-born New York trial lawyer who defended the Scottsboro Boys without pay and won the Supreme Court ruling that barred the exclusion of Black citizens from juries.
More about Samuel Leibowitz
- Samuel Leibowitz insisted a Black witness be called "Mr."In the Scottsboro trials, Samuel Leibowitz asked the prosecution to address a Black witness as "Mr. Sandford" rather than by his first name, defying courtroom custom in Alabama.
- Samuel Leibowitz became a judge who took on organised crimeElected a Brooklyn judge in 1940, Samuel Leibowitz served nearly three decades on the bench, hearing gang and organised crime cases and rooting out corrupt officials.
- Samuel Leibowitz saved a mentally ill man from executionIn 1937 Samuel Leibowitz defended Robert Irwin, a former mental patient accused of triple murder, and negotiated a plea that spared him the death penalty.
- Samuel Leibowitz defended the Scottsboro Boys without a feeSamuel Leibowitz defended the Scottsboro Boys without a fee and won Norris v. Alabama, the 1935 ruling that Alabama's exclusion of Black jurors was unconstitutional.
- Samuel Leibowitz defended "the basic rights of man"Samuel Leibowitz, who did not share the politics of the group that hired him, took the Scottsboro case to defend "the basic rights of man" after reading the trial record.
Sources
- Samuel Leibowitz Wikipedia
- Scottsboro Boys Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.