Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers invoked a notorious trial that was postponed as a symbol of mob justice and racism, in an effort to delay his own January 6 trial until after the 2024 election.
The federal judge who set the calendar and set a court date the day before Super Tuesday was unimpressed.
Judge Tanya Powell brought up the reference — plucked from the introduction to Trump’s own file — delaying the trial just two months after what prosecutors demanded, enraging Trump.
The quote, Judge Chutkan noted, came from the infamous Scottsboro Boys case, in which nine African-American boys were accused of raping two white teenagers on an Alabama freight train.
They were tried just six days after the indictment and did not have time to choose their own lawyers. They were not charged until five days after their arrest. National Guardsmen had to remove them after a lynch mob formed ACLU told. The first convictions came on the second day of the trial, and death sentences soon followed, in a brutal illustration of Jim Crow-era justice.
A judge was annoyed by the arguments of Donald Trump’s lawyers, which compared his trial to the “haste of the mafia” in the infamous Scottsboro Boys case. Clarence Norris, Olen Montgomery, Andy Wright, Willie Roberson, Ozie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charlie Weems, Roy Wright and Haywood Patterson were charged with raping two white women. The Supreme Court overturned their convictions in 1932
Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers relied on the Scottsboro Boys case, which is associated with the mob regime and established the right to due process of legal representation and due process. He wanted his January 6 trial to be postponed until 2026
The Supreme Court overturned their conviction, ruling that they were denied the right to an attorney, in violation of their rights to a fair trial.
“This trial is not moving the case forward with the haste of the mob,” Chutkan said, dismissing the analogy when she announced her decision following a spirited performance by Trump attorney John Lawyer. (Chutkan told him twice to lower the temperature).
Chutkan, himself a former public defender appointed by President Barack Obama, called Trump’s case “very different” for “a number of reasons.”
The boys were “met in Scottsboro by a large crowd and the attitude of the community was one of great hostility,” she noted.
Their trials “began six days after the indictment,” she said.
The Alabama trial became a notorious case and helped establish the right to due process to choose a lawyer
The case became an international sensation
The Supreme Court ruled ‘there was a clear denial of due process because the court failed to provide the defendants with reasonable time and opportunity to obtain counsel and the defendants were unable to adequately defend themselves. to defend.’
She said Trump was represented by “a team of diligent and experienced lawyers,” and said they had been given plenty of time to prepare.
And she said Trump had “known about the administration’s investigation for almost a year,” which gave him a chance to prepare for the trial. Nor was he an impoverished defendant without access to talented lawyers, unlike many people in the criminal justice system.
Retired California Supreme Court Justice Judge LaDoris Cordell called the decision to call the Scottsboro Boyhs case “stunningly stupid to do,” calling the decision “absurd” in an appearance on CNN.
Attorney for former President Donald Trump John Lauro said Trump would abide by Chutkan’s order after making an impassioned plea about the need to be given time to prepare
“Let’s not overlook the fact that Mr. Trump has significant resources that any criminal defendant normally does not have,” she said at one point.
Her remarks were all forewords, delivered after a brief pause at a hearing on Monday, where she rejected the government’s request for a January 2 trial, but still showed far more sympathy for the government’s position.
Judge Tanya Chutkn rejected the Trump legal team’s comparison to the haste of the Scottsboro Boys trial, as Trump sought to have his January 6 trial take place in 2026.
While Lauro delivered a series of impassioned pleas, accusing the administration of selective prosecution and pushing for a “show trial,” prosecutor Molly Gaston tailored her remarks more closely to the evidence, noting that Trump was accused of seeking to overturn an election aimed at disenfranchising millions of voters. Americans.
After Chutkan filed a lawsuit in the middle of the Republican Party’s presidential primaries, Trump called her a “Trump hater” and Special Counsel Jack Smith again called her “insane.”
Trump lawyers Lauro and Todd Blanche, along with Gregory Singer and Filzah I. Pavalon, quoted from the Supreme Court decision at the top of their filing, where they also commented on the 11.5 million documents the administration had produced to date . (It has now grown to over 12 million).
“The speedy handling of criminal cases is to be commended and encouraged. But in order to achieve that result, a suspect accused of a serious crime should not be deprived of his right to have sufficient time to seek advice and prepare his defence. If we do so, we must proceed not immediately in the calm spirit of regulated justice, but proceed with the haste of the mob,” Trump’s filing began, quoting from the 1932 decision: Powell v. Alabama.