Voting Station

Scottsboro Boys

Please vote to see the next celebrity.

Scapegoat

The Resume

    Nine black youths arrested in Scottsboro, Alabama, for the alleged rape of two white women (March 25, 1931)
    Charlie Weems (age 20 in 1931), Clarence Norris (19), Haywood Patterson (19), Andy Wright (19), Olin Montgomery (17), Willie Robertson (17), Eugene Williams (13) and Roy Wright (12)
    Convicted with all but Roy Wright sentenced to death (April 9, 1931)
    Sentenced overturned on grounds of inadequate counsel
    Retried and re-convicted (April 9, 1933)
    Verdict set aside by the judge on grounds of perjury by prosecution witnesses
    Patterson and Norris retried and again found guilty (November 30-December 6, 1933)
    Verdicts overturned by the Supreme Court on the grounds that blacks had been systematically excluded from juries (1935)
    Patterson, Norris, Weems and Andy Wright once again found guilty of rape; charges against the remaining five were dropped (1936-37)
    Four convicted defendants served 6 to 13 years before being paroled

Why they might be annoying:

    They spent much of their first trial blaming each other for the alleged crime.
    Their cause was adopted by the Communist Party to condemn 'capitalist justice.'
    The Communist Party's hiring of defense attorney Sidney Leibowitz for the defendants backfired when the prosecutor told the jury, 'Show them that Alabama justice cannot be bought with Jew money from New York.'
    Powell pled guilty to stabbing a deputy sheriff during a jail transfer and was sentenced to 20 years (1937).
    Patterson was convicted of manslaughter after killing a man in a bar fight (1950).
    Roy Wright murdered his wife and committed suicide (1959).

Why they might not be annoying:

    They were repeatedly convicted despite medical testimony at each trial that the 'victims' had not been raped.
    While awaiting their first trial, they were kept in cells on death row, where they could hear people being electrocuted in the chair.
    'Victim' Ruby Bates admitted to making up the rape allegation to avoid being arrested for vagrancy.
    Norris, the last surviving Scottsboro Boy, was officially pardoned by Governor George Wallace (1976).
    Norris said he was not bitter, adding, 'They said I was nobody, a dog, but I stood up and told the truth.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 7 Votes: 42.86% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 79 Votes: 43.04% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 14 Votes: 42.86% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 33 Votes: 51.52% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 22 Votes: 40.91% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 12 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 73 Votes: 63.01% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 19 Votes: 47.37% Annoying
    In 2008, Out of 33 Votes: 51.52% Annoying
    In 2007, Out of 68 Votes: 50.0% Annoying