After a 1919 Red Summer race riot in Elaine, Ark., 12 black farmers are arrested and charged with killing whites. Throughout the men's trial, a crowd surrounds the courthouse and demands that the accused be sentenced to death. If not, the crowd threatens to abduct and lynch the defendants. The crowd cheers when the judge sentences all 12 men to death.
During the trial, the NAACP's chief investigator of lynching, Walter White, poses as a newspaper reporter and documents the events (press). White is African American, but his pale skin, blue eyes and blond hair give him access to places normally closed to black reporters or investigators. Based on his findings, the NAACP hires lawyers to appeal the death sentences (petition), arguing that the presence of the threatening crowd made it impossible for the defendants to receive a fair trial.
The case goes to the Supreme Court, which on Feb. 19, 1923, rules 6-2 in favor of the defendants. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes writes that although "counsel, jury and judge were swept to the fatal end by an irresistible tide of public passion … nothing can prevent this court from securing to the petitioners their constitutional rights."
Moore v. Dempsey
The Supreme Court declares the murder trial for 12 African Americans was unfair because an unruly mob called for the death penalty outside the courthouse and influenced the verdict.
- Civil Rights
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Lawyer and Defendants of the Moore v. Dempsey Case
The NAACP argues that 12 black farmers sentenced to death did not get a fair trial because of their race. The Supreme Court rules in their favor in 1923.
The 'Elaine Twelve'
Twelve African-American men are charged with murder after five whites and 100 blacks die in a race riot in Elaine, Ark., in 1919.
Also worth noting
Lawyer Scipio Africanus Jones (left) defended the six men from Elaine, Ark., who became part of the Moore v. Dempsey case.
Also worth noting
Five whites and as many as 100 blacks were killed in Elaine, Ark. A county grand jury charged these men, later known as the "Elaine Twelve," with murder in the 1919 riot.
