The Martinsville Seven: Race, Rape, and Capital Punishment

by Eric W. Rise

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813915678
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	05/29/1995
Series:	Constitutionalism and Democracy
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.25(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Editorial Reviews

"The story of the Martinsville Seven is a fascinating and important one, and Rise tells it well.... He has written a book that historians as well as lawyers can comprehend and that both ought to read. "—author of Journal of American History

"Rise has produced a model study which reminds us that formalism can serve to defend unfairness. His study also underscores the relationship between law and society. "—author of American Journal of Legal History

From the Publisher

This is a careful exposition of a notorious Virginia case that led to the 1951 electrocution of seven young black men convicted of raping a white woman. Rise, who teaches sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, first sketches the Jan. 8, 1949, attack of Ruby Floyd in a black neighborhood in the western Virginia town of Martinsville. The black community, he notes, was shocked not by the convictions but by the death sentences. The NAACP and a discomfiting rival, the left-wing Civil Rights Congress, campaigned against the convictions. The author charges that the judicial system, which rejected several appeals, ignored the climate of ``hostility and prejudice'' against the defendants, valuing social order over due process. Most important, the appeals marked the NAACP's first attempt to use equal-protection arguments (previously cited in desegregation cases) to challenge racially disparate sentences. Such arguments persist today. Photos. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A scholarly treatment of the Martinsville case in which seven black men were convicted of rape in Virginia and executed in 1951. Rise (sociology and criminal justice, U. of Delaware) shows how the interplay between due process, crime control, and community stability factored into the severe sentence imposed on the men, and how the success of groups such as the NAACP to curb abuses attacked, for the first time, the discriminatory application of the law against blacks in capital cases. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Rise has produced a model study which reminds us that formalism can serve to defend unfairness. His study also underscores the relationship between law and society.

American Journal of Legal History

The story of the Martinsville Seven is a fascinating and important one, and Rise tells it well.... He has written a book that historians as well as lawyers can comprehend and that both ought to read.

Journal of American History