Moore v. Dempsey

Frank Moore and four other Black men (defendants) were sentenced to death for the murder of a White man, Clinton Lee. In 1919, a group of Black farmers met at a church in Phillips, Arkansas, allegedly to hire counsel to protect themselves from local landowners’ extortion. White men invaded the church, and a White man was killed in the ensuing struggle. Afterward, White people hunted down and killed many Black people, and at some point, Lee was killed. In response, Arkansas’s governor appointed a Committee of Seven (the committee) to evaluate the events. The committee publicly characterized the murder as part of an insurrection that Black people deliberately planned in order to kill White people. After the five defendants’ arrests, a mob marched to the local jail to lynch the arrestees but stopped after some of the committee members promised that “the law would be carried out” and anyone convicted would be executed. The committee allegedly whipped and tortured Black witnesses to coerce testimony against the accused. During trial, a hostile White crowd gathered in the courtroom and its surrounding neighborhood. Appointed defense counsel did not consult with his clients before trial, challenge the all-White jury, request a change of venue, request separate trials, or call any trial witnesses. After a 45-minute trial, the jury deliberated for less than five minutes before convicting the five defendants of first-degree murder. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, finding that a racist-jury-selection claim was untimely, and that it was not necessarily true that the trial was unfair because the five defendants had counsel, the trial proceeded according to law, and the evidence was legally sufficient. During appellate proceedings, the committee members and many other community groups urged Arkansas’s governor to promptly execute the five defendants. The five defendants petitioned the district court for habeas corpus, but the district court denied the writ as facially insufficient. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.