Does Homer Plessy's conviction still stand?

Factual Questions
1

Homer Plessy was a gentleman who lived in Louisiana in 1892. Plessy was of mixed racial heritage - one eight African-American. Plessy bought a ticket for a railroad trip and proceeded to sit in the Whites Only car. The railroad conductor was informed that Plessy was of a mixed racial background (by Plessy himself - he was deliberately setting up a confrontation). When asked to move to the “colored car,” Plessy refused and was arrested. He was eventually convicted and sentenced to a $25 fine.

This case went to court and eventually made it all the way up to the Supreme Court as the famous case Plessy vs. Ferguson. In 1896, the Court ended up ruling that “separate but equal” was legal.

This decision, of course, was overturned by Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, which ruled that “separate but equal” was inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional.

That being said, does that mean from a legal standpoint that Plessy’s conviction gets wiped out? I know that it doesn’t mean much to Homer Plessy, as he died in 1925. But, nonetheless, I’m curious if the conviction still officially stands in light of the Brown decision…

Zev Steinhardt

2

The easy answer is yes, it still stands, because the Brown decision didn’t come until after Plessy’s final appeal was exhausted (i.e., he died). The Court in 1954 decided that the Plessy decision was wrong but it did not actually set aside its own decision to uphold the conviction. If any special proclamation has been made in the Plessy case, I’ve never heard of it.