The Martinsville Seven: Race, Rape, and Capital Punishment - Hardcover

by Eric W. Rise (Author)

This book offers the first comprehensive treatment of the case of the Martinsville Seven, a group of young black men executed in 1951 for the rape of a white woman in Martinsville, Virginia. Covering every aspect of the proceedings from the commission of the crime through two appeals, Eric W. Rise reexamines common assumptions about the administration of justice in the South. Although the defendants confessed to the crime, racial prejudice undeniably contributed to their eventual executions. Rise highlights the efforts of the attorneys who, rather than focusing on procedural errors, directly attacked the discriminatory application of the death penalty. The Martinsville Seven case was the first instance in which statistical evidence was used to prove systematic discrimination against blacks in capital cases.

Back Jacket

In January 1949 a thirty-two-year-old white woman in Martinsville, Virginia, accused seven young black men of raping her. Within two days state and local police had rounded up all the suspects and extracted confessions from them. In a series of trials that lasted eleven days, all were found guilty and sentenced to death - a sentence that was carried out, amid a storm of protest from civil-rights advocates and death-penalty opponents, in February 1951. Here is the first comprehensive treatment of the Martinsville case. Covering every aspect of the proceedings, from the commission of the crime through two sets of appeals, Eric Rise reexamines common assumptions about the administration of justice in the South. Although racial prejudice undeniably contributed to the outcome of the case, so did concerns for due process, crime control, community stability, judicial restraint, and domestic security. The success of the due process campaign by groups such as the NAACP helped curb the most egregious abuses of authority, but it did little to help defendants who conceded their guilt but protested unusually severe sentences. The author focuses on the efforts of the attorneys for the Martinsville Seven, who, rather than citing procedural errors, directly attacked the discriminatory application of the death penalty. It was the first case in which statistical evidence was used to substantiate systematic discrimination against blacks in capital cases.