The Scottsboro case unfolded over more than eighty years. It began on March 25, 1931, with the arrest of nine Black teenagers in Paint Rock, Alabama, moved through active trials and two U.S. Supreme Court reversals between 1931 and 1937, and did not reach full legal closure until November 2013, when Alabama issued posthumous pardons to the last three defendants whose convictions still stood.
The Arrests on March 25, 1931
A fight broke out between groups of Black and white young men riding a Southern Railroad freight train through northern Alabama on March 25, 1931. A posse stopped the train at Paint Rock, and authorities arrested nine Black youths on assault charges. Two white women aboard the train then accused the group of rape, and those charges were added against all nine.
The defendants, who became known as the Scottsboro Boys, ranged in age from 13 to 20: Charles Weems, 20; Clarence Norris, 19; Andy Wright, 19; Haywood Patterson, 18; Olen Montgomery, 17; Willie Roberson, 15; Ozie Powell, 14; Eugene Williams, 13; and Roy Wright, 13. Most had not known each other before that day on the train. They were taken to the Scottsboro jail in Jackson County.
The First Trials, April 6–9, 1931
Formal trials began in Scottsboro on April 6, 1931, twelve days after the arrests. Judge A. E. Hawkins presided, and all nine cases were tried and concluded in four days.1American Experience. The Scottsboro Trial: A Timeline
The defendants were tried in groups before all-white juries. Norris and Weems were convicted on April 6–7. Patterson followed on April 7–8. Montgomery, Powell, Roberson, Williams, and Andy Wright were tried together on April 8–9. All eight received death sentences. Roy Wright’s trial ended in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked: eleven jurors wanted the death penalty even though the prosecution, acknowledging Wright’s age, had only asked for life imprisonment.2National Museum of African American History and Culture. The Scottsboro Boys
A local attorney had been nominally appointed the morning the trials began, leaving virtually no time to prepare a defense. That failure became the basis for the first Supreme Court intervention.
Powell v. Alabama, November 7, 1932
On November 7, 1932, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45. The Court held that in a capital case, when a defendant cannot afford a lawyer and lacks the ability to mount an adequate defense, due process under the Fourteenth Amendment requires the court to appoint counsel, and that duty is not satisfied by assigning a lawyer at the last minute under conditions that make real preparation impossible. The convictions were reversed and new trials ordered.3Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45
It was the first time the Supreme Court required states to provide lawyers for defendants who could not afford them, though the ruling was limited to capital cases. The Court later cited Powell as a foundation for Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963, which extended the right to appointed counsel to all criminal defendants facing imprisonment.4Justia. Gideon v. Wainwright
The 1933 Retrials
Retrials began in March 1933, moved from Scottsboro to Decatur in Morgan County. Samuel Leibowitz, a New York defense attorney hired by the International Labor Defense, took the lead without fee. Judge James E. Horton presided over the first retrial, Haywood Patterson’s.
On April 6, 1933, Ruby Bates, one of the two accusers, took the stand as a defense witness and recanted her original testimony. She swore that Victoria Price had invented the rape story, testifying that Price said “we might have to stay in jail if we did not frame up a story after crossing a State line with men.” Bates denied that any of the defendants had touched either woman. Price, the other accuser, never wavered.5PBS. The Scottsboro Accusers
The all-white jury convicted Patterson again and sentenced him to death. On June 22, 1933, Judge Horton set aside the verdict on his own authority, ruling that the conviction was against the weight of the evidence, and ordered a new trial. The Alabama Supreme Court removed Horton from the case, and the subsequent retrials went to Judge William Callahan, under whom Patterson and Norris were again convicted and sentenced to death.6PBS. The Scottsboro Judges
Norris v. Alabama, April 1, 1935
On April 1, 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587. Leibowitz had documented the systematic exclusion of Black citizens from jury rolls in Morgan and Jackson counties despite the presence of qualified Black residents in both areas. The Court held that the deliberate and longstanding exclusion of Black people from grand juries and trial juries solely because of race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The convictions were reversed again, and Alabama was required to reform its jury selection procedures.7Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Norris v. Alabama
The 1936–1937 Resolution
In January 1936, Patterson was convicted for the fourth time and sentenced to seventy-five years in prison. By the summer of 1937, a negotiated resolution produced a split outcome.8Famous Trials. The Scottsboro Boys Trials: A Chronology
In July 1937, the state dropped all charges against four defendants: Roy Wright, Eugene Williams, Olen Montgomery, and Willie Roberson. They walked out of custody after more than six years in prison. The remaining five were convicted under various charges and sentences:
- Clarence Norris: convicted of rape and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment by the governor in 1938.
- Andy Wright: convicted of rape and sentenced to ninety-nine years.
- Charlie Weems: convicted of rape and sentenced to seventy-five years.
- Haywood Patterson: sentenced to seventy-five years from his January 1936 trial.
- Ozie Powell: pleaded guilty to assaulting a deputy sheriff and was sentenced to twenty years; the rape charge against him was dropped.
Powell’s plea grew out of a 1936 courtroom transfer during which he had slashed a deputy’s throat with a knife; the sheriff shot Powell in the head in response, and Powell survived.8Famous Trials. The Scottsboro Boys Trials: A Chronology
Parole and Later Years
Weems was paroled in September 1943. Norris and Andy Wright were paroled in January 1944, though both later faced re-incarceration for parole violations before eventually gaining their freedom. Powell was paroled in 1946.8Famous Trials. The Scottsboro Boys Trials: A Chronology
Patterson escaped from an Alabama prison in July 1948 and fled to Michigan. Governor G. Mennen Williams refused to extradite him after a nationwide letter-writing campaign was mounted on his behalf. Patterson was arrested in Michigan in 1950 in connection with a fatal barroom fight and, after two mistrials, was convicted of manslaughter. He died of cancer on August 24, 1952, at age thirty-nine.9Famous Trials. Haywood Patterson
Clarence Norris’s 1976 Pardon
On October 25, 1976, Alabama Governor George C. Wallace granted a full pardon to Clarence Norris, the last surviving defendant. Under Alabama law, a pardon for someone whose death sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment required the State Pardon and Parole Board to unanimously find that the person was “innocent at the outset.” The board reached that finding. Norris was sixty-four.10The New York Times. Last of Scottsboro 9 Is Pardoned
The 2013 Posthumous Pardons
The Norris pardon left three defendants with convictions still on their records after death: Haywood Patterson, Charlie Weems, and Andy Wright. In April 2013, the Alabama legislature passed the Scottsboro Boys Act, which created a mechanism for posthumous pardons in cases involving racial injustice. The law applied to anyone convicted of a Class A or Class B felony where the person was deceased, the conviction was at least eighty years old, and the circumstances provided a compelling reason related to racial discrimination.11Alabama Digital Humanities Center. Letters from the Scottsboro Boys Trials
In November 2013, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles granted posthumous pardons to Patterson, Weems, and Andy Wright. Combined with the 1937 dismissals against four defendants and Norris’s 1976 pardon, those actions brought formal legal closure to a case that had begun eighty-two years earlier.12National Archives. The Scottsboro Boys: Injustice in Alabama