Moore v Dempsey (1923) - notes on the case PDF

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Moore v Dempsey (1923) Notes Queson ○ How closely should federal courts review the fairness of state criminal trials on peons for writs of habeas corpus? ● Protected a criminals right to have a fair trial by creang a process for the federal govt to oversee state courts specifically when someone says that they were not given a fair trial ● Case ○ Exploitave sharecropping system in Phillips County, Arkansas ■ Black tenant farmers purchased farming equipment on credit, oen on unfair terms, and worked to repay the debt ■ System le many African Americans ed to their land and beholden to white creditors and landowners ○ Black farmers formed an organizaon designed to combat this system ■ White landowners and law enforcement officers aacked members of this group meeng at a church and ended up burning the church down ■ One of the white guys was killed, but they say they think mulple black farmers were killed in the fire ■ Word got out that there was something crazy going on and white vigilante groups showed up and killed anywhere from 10s to 100s of black people ●

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based on a rumor they heard The 'commiee of seven" was a group of white locals who invesgated this incident ■ They concluded that the violence occurred because of a planned violent uprising of black farmers ■ Ordered witnesses to be tortured ll they gave informaon or confessed Several black men were indicted for murder During the trial, there was a crowd outside threatening to hang the defendants unless they were found guilty Jury only deliberated for less than 5 minutes and found them guilty and sentenced them to death Other defendants confessed to crimes they didn’t commit to avoid the death sentence

Ruling ○

The state argued that the state court system had permied the peoners a fair trial and that the supreme court had upheld the fairness of the trials away from any mob inmidaon...