The U.S. Supreme Court hands down a landmark decision on the Powell v, Alabama case, (aka The Scottsboro Boys trial), reversing the convictions of the nine young African American men who had been convicted and sentenced to death for raping two white women in 1931 and ordering new trials.
The reversal was based on the ground that the due process clause of the United States Constitution guarantees the effective assistance of counsel at a criminal trial. In an opinion written by Associate Justice George Sutherland, the Supreme Court found the defendants had been denied effective counsel. During the retrials, one of the alleged victims admitted to fabricating the rape story and asserted that none of the Scottsboro Boys touched either of the white women. More
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