Scipio Jones' Brief to the Supreme Court Regarding the Elaine Twelve

Scipio Jones, a prominent African-American attorney from Little Rock, represented the twelve men convicted for their supposed involvment in the Elaine Race Massacre in 1919. Jones wrote this brief, entitled "Arkansas Peons" and published in the NAACP's magazine The Crisis in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court's review of the case.morning of October 1, Mr. O. S. Bratton, son and agent of Attorney U. S. Bratton, arrived in Elaine for consultation with those who might desire to employ his father, was arrested, hardly escaped being mobbed, notwithstanding it was well known that he was there only for the purpose of advising with those Negroes as to their rights, and getting from them such facts as would enable his father intelligently to prepare for their legal rights; that he was carried thence to the County jail, thrown into it an kept closely confined on a charge of murder until the 31st day of the same month, when he was indicted on a charge of barratry, without any evidence to sustain the charge; that on that day he was told by officials that he would be discharged, but not to go on the public streets anywhere, to keep the matter a secret, to leave secretly in a closed automobile and to go to West Helena, four miles away, and there take the train, so as to avoid being mobbed; that he was told he would be mobbed, or would be in great danger of being mobbed if his release became known publicly before he was out of reach; that the Judge of the Circuit Court, the Judge of the same court before whom petitioners were tried, facilitated the secret departure and himself went to West Helena and there remained until he had seen said Bratton safely on the train and the train departed. Petitioners further say that the Circuit Court of Phillips County convened on October 27, 1919; that a grand jury was organized composed wholly of white men, one of whom, W.W. Keese, was a member of the said Committee of Seven, and many of whom were in the posse organized to fight the Negroes; that during its sessions, petitioners and many others of the prisoners were frequently carried before it in an effort to extract from them false incriminating admissions and to testify against each other, and that both before and after, they were frequently whipped, beaten and tortured; that those in charge of them had some way of learning when the evidence was unsatisfactory to the grand jury, and this was always followed by beating and whipping; that by these methods, some of the Negro prisoners were forced to testify against others, two against your petitioners, though no one could truthfully testify against them; that on October 29,1919, a joint indictment was returned against petitioners accusing them of the murder of said Clinton Lee, a man petitioners did not know and had never, to their knowledge, even seen; that thereafter on the 3rd day of November, 1919, petitioners were taken into the court room before the judge told of the charge, and were informed that a certain lawyer was appointed to defend them; that they were given no opportunity to employ an attorney of their own choice; that the appointed attorney did not consult with them, took no steps to prepare for their defense, asked nothing about their witnesses, though there were many who knew that petitioners had nothing to do with the killing of said Lee; that they were immediately placed on joint trail before an exclusively white jury and the trial closed so far as the evidence was concerned with the State’s witnesses alone; that after the court’s instructions, the jury retired just long enough to write a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, as charged, and returned with it into court—not being out exceeding two or three minutes, and they were promptly sentenced to death by electrocution on December 27, 1919. Petitioners further say that during the course of said trial, which lasted less than an hour, that only two witnesses testified to anything to connect them in any way with the killing of said Clinton Lee; that said witnesses were Walter Ward and John Jefferson, both of whom are Negroes and were under indictment at the same time for the killing of said Lee; that they were compelled to testify against them by the same methods and means hereinbefore described; that their testimony was wholly false and that they gave such testimony through fear of torture and were further told that if they refused to testify they would be killed, but that if they did so testify, and would plead guilty their punishment would be light; that they thereafter pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree and were sentenced to terms of imprisonment; that they attach hereto the affidavits of each of said witnesses showing the falsity of their testimony and the means of its acquisition. Petitioners further say that large crowds of white people bent on petitioners’ condemnation and death thronged the courthouse and grounds and streets of Helena all during the trial of petitioners and the other Negro defendants; that on account of the great publicity given theirs and the other cases, on account o