Prof. Timothy O'neill Says Book Details Overlooked Marshall Case

CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2013

Volume 159, No. 100 Book details overlooked Marshall case ere’s a sobering Mockingbird” directed by Florida than any other place in thought. Most law Quentin Tarantino. CRIMINAL the country.” Being tried in court students today were At the center of the story is an was not nearly as dangerous for not alive at any time evil-personified Southern sheriff PROCEDURE a black rape defendant as trying when Thurgood named Willis McCall. King to get to court. HMarshall served as a justice on describes him — for the benefit Not surprisingly, Marshall had the Supreme Court. of those of us over 60 — as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund As someone who grew up at a making “Bull Connor look like get involved with the trial. And, time when Marshall was a Barney Fife.” McCall ran Lake not surprisingly, the story even - household name, I have to County, Fla., as his personal TIMOTHY P. tually results in a victory in the remind myself of this when I fiefdom for more than a quarter- O’N EILL U.S. Supreme Court. But if, like teach a law school class. Stories century. me, you expected the book to end that were “current events” to me And McCall worked out a with the Supreme Court victory, — Brown v. Board, Selma, the lucrative scam. Lake County in you are in for a shock. The Timothy P. O’Neill is a professor at Civil Rights Act of 1964 — have the 1940s was the birthplace of a The John Marshall Law School. In 2012 Supreme Court victory actually passed into the mists of history. company that invented the he was awarded the Chicago Bar occurs in the middle and is But some stories must be re- concept of frozen orange juice; Association’s Herman Kogan merely a prelude to some tragic told to a new generation. And the company would become Meritorious Achievement Award for twists and turns that defy belief. that is why I was so pleased to known as Minute Maid. Much of legal journalism. Readers are invited to This book is yet one more see a long-shot book win this the back-breaking picking of visit his Web log and archives at reminder of Thurgood Marshall’s year’s Pulitzer Prize for general oranges was done by abysmally jmls.edu/oneill. pre-eminent place in American nonfiction: Gilbert King’s “Devil paid black workers. legal history. He argued 32 cases in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, Some black workers rebelled before the U.S. Supreme Court the Groveland Boys and the at the hard-work-for-low-pay referred to Groveland as “the and won 29. He invalidated Dawn of a New America” regime in the Minute Maid Little Scottsboro case.” racially segregated schools in (Harper, 2012). groves and simply walked off the Younger readers should be Brown and eliminated restrictive I would recommend it not only job. If they did, however, the reminded that at this time rape covenants in Shelley v. Kraemer . to every lawyer, but every grower-friendly McCall arrested was a capital offense throughout In the criminal area, he won American. And it is an absolute them and charged them with the South; it was until 1977 that several important cases relating must-read for anyone too young vagrancy. They were then tried, the U.S. Supreme Court found to both the death penalty and to really know who Thurgood convicted and assessed exorbi - the death penalty for rape to be the use of involuntary confes - Marshall was. tant fines. Those that could not unconstitutional. And Southern sions. I thought I knew Marshall’s pay the fines were sent to jail. prosecutors invariably asked for But what is sometimes career fairly well from reading At this point, Minute Maid the death penalty only in cases forgotten is the incredible Juan Williams’ excellent foremen would tell bail where a black man was accused courage both he and the other biography from a decade ago. bondsmen how many men were of raping a white woman. NAACP black lawyers showed in But King’s book deals with a needed to work. The bail In Marshall’s words, the death traveling throughout the Jim criminal case that I had no bondsmen then used money penalty for rape was “more Crow South and trying cases in knowledge of — “The Groveland supplied by Minute Maid to pay consistently and more blatantly courthouses both large and Boys,” a Florida rape case of the fines and bonds to get that racist in application than any small. Often, the NAACP lawyer 1949. King, who describes himself number of men out of jail. The other in American law.” was the first black lawyer to ever as an amateur historian, says men then had to work to pay off Yet for a black man accused of appear in a particular court - that Groveland “wasn’t really what they owed Minute Maid. raping a white woman in Florida, house. Always, the black lawyers covered in a lot of the Marshall Armed guards prevented them the death penalty may have been faced real physical danger. biographies, which tend to treat from escaping. You could the least of his worries. Consider In 1947, when the first black his criminal cases as footnotes. compare it to a chain gang in this: from 1882 to 1930, Florida major league baseball player His clerks knew all about it, “Cool Hand Luke.” You might recorded more lynchings of black needed legal help, Branch Rickey though, because he always talked also compare it to a form of post- people — 266, to be exact — than sent Jackie Robinson to about it when he recalled the old World War II slavery. any other state. Or this: From Marshall. The recent movie “42” days.” Enter Norma Lee Padgett, a 1900 to 1930, Florida had a per was a much-needed retelling of It is clear to see why. It is the 17-year-old blonde. She accused capita lynching rate twice that of Robinson’s story. Similarly, story of four black men falsely four black men of raping her. Mississippi, Georgia or “Devil in the Grove” makes us accused of raping a 17-year-old (Spoiler alert: They did not.) If Louisiana. This led one historian once again appreciate the white girl. But it unfolds like a this situation sounds familiar, to conclude that “a black man enormous debt Americans owe production of “To Kill a you should know that the press had more risk of being lynched in Marshall.