The Scottsboro trial lasted four days at its shortest count, from April 6 to April 9, 1931, but the full legal saga stretched over six years through July 1937, and the case was not fully closed until posthumous pardons were granted in 2013, more than 80 years after the arrests. Which number answers the question depends on what you count: the original trials, the full run of appeals and retrials, or the decades of imprisonment and exoneration that followed.
The Original Trials: Four Days in April 1931
Nine African American teenagers between the ages of 13 and 20 were pulled from a Southern Railroad freight train on March 25, 1931, near Paint Rock, Alabama. Two white women aboard accused all nine of rape. A grand jury indicted them on capital charges by March 30, and trials began on April 6 before Judge A. E. Hawkins.1Famous Trials. The Scottsboro Boys Trials: A Chronology
Over three days of back-to-back proceedings, juries convicted eight of the nine defendants and sentenced each to death. The case against 13-year-old Roy Wright ended in a mistrial when 11 jurors pushed for a death sentence despite the prosecution asking only for life imprisonment because of his age.2American Experience. The Scottsboro Trial: A Timeline Only 15 days had passed between arrest and death sentences.
The pace was possible in part because the defense barely existed. Stephen Roddy, a Chattanooga real estate lawyer, arrived on the first day too drunk to walk straight. Milo Moody, the 70-year-old local attorney appointed alongside him, had not tried a case in decades. The defense spent only minutes questioning the lead accuser, did not cross-examine the examining doctors, and offered no closing argument.3Famous Trials. The Trials of The Scottsboro Boys: An Account
Why Four Days Was Not the End
The convictions were reversed. On November 7, 1932, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Powell v. Alabama that the trial court had denied the defendants due process by failing to provide a reasonable opportunity to secure counsel. Justice George Sutherland held that in a capital case, the right to appointed counsel is a fundamental requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.4Justia. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932) The cases were sent back to Alabama for new trials, and the defendants remained in custody while the legal machinery reset.
The 1933 Retrials in Decatur
The retrials moved to Decatur, Alabama, with New York criminal defense attorney Samuel Leibowitz representing the defendants without fees.5American Experience. The Scottsboro Defense Attorney Haywood Patterson was tried first, in late March 1933. One of the accusers, Ruby Bates, took the stand for the defense and recanted her testimony. The jury convicted Patterson on April 9, 1933, and sentenced him to death.1Famous Trials. The Scottsboro Boys Trials: A Chronology
Judge James Horton set the verdict aside on June 22, 1933, and ordered a new trial. Patterson was retried in November 1933 before a different judge, convicted a third time, and sentenced to death on December 6.
A Second Supreme Court Reversal
Leibowitz had built a separate challenge into the record, showing that no Black citizen had served on a jury in the counties where the defendants were tried. On April 1, 1935, the Supreme Court ruled in Norris v. Alabama that the systematic exclusion of Black citizens from jury service violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.6Justia. Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587 (1935) Four years after the original arrests, Alabama was back at square one for a third round.
The Six-Year Mark: Final Trials in 1936 and 1937
The last round of trials ran between 1936 and 1937. Patterson was convicted a fourth time in January 1936 and sentenced to 75 years. In July 1937, Clarence Norris was convicted and sentenced to death. Andy Wright received 99 years. Charlie Weems received 75 years. Ozie Powell, who had been shot by a deputy sheriff during the proceedings, pleaded guilty to assaulting the deputy and was sentenced to 20 years, with the rape charge against him dropped.7Famous Trials. The Scottsboro Boys Trials: A Chronology
On July 24, 1937, the state dropped all charges against the remaining four defendants: Roy Wright, Eugene Williams, Olen Montgomery, and Willie Roberson. From the March 1931 arrests to the July 1937 releases, the active legal proceedings had consumed six years and four months.
Beyond the Courtroom: Imprisonment and Pardons
The end of the trials was not the end of the case. The five convicted defendants served lengthy sentences, and Norris’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the governor. The defendants collectively spent more than 100 years in prison.8National Museum of African American History and Culture. The Scottsboro Boys Andy Wright, the last still behind bars, was not released until the 1950s.
Clarence Norris, the sole surviving defendant by the mid-1970s, received a full pardon from Alabama Governor George Wallace on October 25, 1976. In 2013, the Alabama legislature unanimously passed a bill enabling posthumous pardons in cases of racial injustice, and the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles granted posthumous pardons to Charles Weems, Andy Wright, and Haywood Patterson on November 21, 2013.9Death Penalty Information Center. Alabama Pardons Scottsboro Boys – Former Death Row Inmates From the first arrest in 1931 to the last pardon in 2013, the case spanned more than 80 years.