Facts of the Case

Provided by Justia

This is an appeal from an order of the District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissing a writ of habeas corpus upon demurrer, the presiding judge certifying that there was probable cause for allowing the appeal. There were two cases originally, but, by agreement, they were consolidated into one. The appellants are five negroes who were convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death by the Court of the State of Arkansas. The ground of the petition for the writ is that the proceedings in the State Court, although a trial in form, were only a form, and that the appellants were hurried to conviction under the pressure of a mob without any regard for their rights and without according to them due process of law. The case stated by the petition is as follows, and it will be understood that, while we put it in narrative form, we are not affirming the facts to be as stated, but only what we must take them to be, as they are admitted by the demurrer. On the night of September 30, 1919, a number of colored people assembled in their church were attacked and fired upon by a body of white men, and in the disturbance that followed, a white man was killed. The report of the killing caused great excitement, and was followed by the hunting down and shooting of many negroes and also by the killing on October 1 of one Clinton Lee, a white man, for whose murder the petitioners were indicted. They seem to have been arrested with many others on the same day. The petitioners say that Lee must have been killed by other whites, but that we leave on one side, as what we have to deal with is not the petitioners' innocence or guilt, but solely the question whether their constitutional rights have been preserved. They say that their meeting was to employ counsel for protection against extortions practiced upon them by the landowners, and that the landowners tried to prevent their effort, but that again we pass by as not directly bearing upon the trial. It should be mentioned, however, that O. S. Bratton, a son of the counsel who is said to have been contemplated and who took part in the argument here, arriving for consultation on October 1, is said to have barely escaped being mobbed; that he was arrested and confined during the month on a charge of murder, and, on October 31, was indicted for barratry, but later in the day was told that he would be discharged, but that he must leave secretly by a closed automobile to take the train at West Helena., four miles away, to avoid being mobbed. It is alleged that the judge of the Court in which the petitioners were tried facilitated the departure and went with Bratton to see him safely off.

Conclusions

  1. 2. A trial for murder in a state court in which the accused are hurried to conviction under mob domination without regard for their rights is without due process of law and absolutely void. P. 261 U. S. 90 . 3. In the absence of sufficient corrective process afforded by the state courts, when persons held under a death sentence and alleging facts showing that their conviction resulted from such a trial, apply to the Federal District Court for habeas corpus, that court must find whether the facts so alleged are true, and whether they can be explained so far as to leave the state proceedings undisturbed. P. 261 U. S. 91 .