I don’t know how you would even start to compare the two things. It’s not a contest in any case.
I think there is already an appeals process to deal with these kinds of situations. Some might still exist, but I think most were dealt with decades ago. You haven’t convinced me that the problem still exists, much less that each state needs to spend somewhere between millions and hundreds of billions of dollars to fix it.
That’s not enough reason to void a conviction. Particularly since most people who get jail sentences of this length get them for murder and other violent felonies.
I’ll say several million dollars each for people whose convictions are overturned. As far as I can tell, that’s how it’s done now.
I wasn’t confining myself to Alabama, nor did the OP, so the number is actually several hundred. Cite. I am sure most of them are dead by now, but then again so are black convicts from the same period. Which is another factor making the idea of a do-over so ridiculous.
Requiring re-trials would not be an ex post facto violation nor would compensating the victims.
Seeking convictions of the state perpetrators would not be a violation if we can find laws that were on the books were the statute of limitations has not run.
Blacks were not allowed on juries. Because of the Jim Crow laws, whites were not blacks legal peers, because whites and blacks were different classes with different rights under the law. Blacks were denied the ability to vote and have a voice in the law. Blacks were denied the ability to serve as elected official and have a voice in the law.
In response to that, consider the first fate of ‘Mr. Freeman’ who molested a very young Maya Angelou during that era and was found guilty but sentenced to just one day.*
And was kicked to death, presumably by Maya’s uncles, the day after he got out.
Just an example, of course, and we’re only talking the South here, since there weren’t Jim Crow laws in the North (though I’m sure there were biased juries.) I can think of 3 or 4 black elected officials in 1963 New York off the top of my head - out of the 300 nationwide in 1965, I don’t think your cite indicates that a lot were in the South. And we are talking then, not now.
That completely misses the point. I didn’t say whether your numbers were fair, I said they weren’t feasable, as in simply not possible. You’d bankrupt every government in the union, and still wouldn’t have your program paid for. You might as well propose we give everybody Green Lantern rings.
The Supreme Court never made the requirements for allowing black jurors retroactive, so even if they appealed, they would not have gotten a new trial on that ground. And it is a very important ground. These defendants were not given juries of their peers–whites and blacks were not legal peers under Jim Crow.
The fact that they were convicted of a serious crime is more reason to require a new trial. These were defendants tried for very serious crimes without a jury of their peers.
Leaving aside the amount of compensation, I think from your earlier statement you believe that black defendants were denied juries of their legal peers. Do you agree with that statement? Do you agree that all defendants have a right to a trial by a jury of their legal peers? Do you agree that a having a right to a jury of one’s peers is necessary for a fair trial? Do you think that even if it is difficult, we should give black defendants that were convicted under Jim Crow the fair trial (with a jury of their peers) that they were denied when they were convicted? Should every defendant get a fair trial?
They shouldn’t get anything. In fact, I think they and/or their heirs should be made to pay back all the money that taxpayers spent maintaining their lives in prison.
Note: I don’t actually believe any of the things I just said, but it’s clear the OP badly needs a feeling of moral superiority, so I thought I’d just help out a bit. Cheers.
So there’s no legal basis for what you’re suggesting, right? That’s on top of it being (I’m not sure what order to put this in) impossible, impracticable, and impractical.
Yes, and yes. I also think if you try to right every historical wrong (especially with money), you’ll never stop. There’s no way this works, and it just doesn’t make sense.
So let’s say we don’t compensate them with one penny. What about the convictions? Do we just let them stand? Even for the people still in prison? You have admitted they did not get fair trials.
So can you give me examples of blacks who were innocent of the crime they were accused of, were railroaded by a racist jury, had all their appeals denied during the racist Jim Crow period and are still alive?
On what law will you rely to indict and prosecute state officials for serving in government prior to 1965? I thought you were suggesting charging them with human rights violations merely for serving in government. I don’t think there is currently any law saying that it is a human rights violation to work for the government prior to 1965, and passing one to make it illegal retroactively runs into the ex post facto provisions previously mentioned.
I think they are pretty rare, yes. I thought you were talking about re-trying all felony and misdemeanor convictions. Has that changed? How about the part where we pay them millions even if they turn out to be guilty?
I think laws like kidnapping, battery, assault, murder would cover the things that were done. Since these activities were well known, anyone who joined the government knew they were joining a criminal organization and conspired to commit these crimes even if they were not personally aware of every crime.
Eventually, we need to get to them all, but we should start with the people in prison right now.
Let me see if I get this correctly. If three black people are serving prison terms for crimes they did not commit, they should not be compensated because it would bankrupt the state? That’s like saying “I falsely imprisoned you and robbed you of xx years of wages and productivity but to punish me would ruin me and my family”. That is not logical and for a person it would not hold up as a defense against liability in a court of law. That is, IF this is what you’re saying.
I do not like the idea of mass reparations for blacks but for those who are alive and who have been wronged, rule of law does say you compensate those that have been wronged.
As a Libertarian I must also point out that the State subjected these black people to exactly the kind of oppression that you can come to expect from having too much Government around. They had no Constitutional right to decline due process for these individuals. Going bankrupt is a heavy price to pay but if that is what must occur then it is a logical and necessary consequence. Such actions must be punished.
Not in 1963 in New York, not that I could remember. If you consider Maryland the North, then maybe (I’d have to look it up.)
I doubt earlier either. When my mother went to Georgia in 1944 to be near my father in an army camp, she outraged the locals by drinking from the colored fountains, since she thought the distinction was stupid.
Note I’m not saying we were free from discrimination - just that it wasn’t legally established in the early 1960s.