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Samuel Leibowitz
Samuel Simon Leibowitz (August 14, 1893 – January 11, 1978) was a Romanian-born American criminal defense attorney. He was best known for representing the Scottsboro Boys, and later became a justice of the New York State Supreme Court.
Samuel Simon Leibowitz was born in Iași, Kingdom of Romania, on August 14, 1893. He was the first child of Romanian Jewish immigrants, Isaac and Bina Lebeau, and arrived in New York City on March 14, 1897. A neighbor recommended that Isaac Lebeau should Americanize his last name to prosper even further as a businessman and so it was changed to Leibowitz.
The family lived in a tenement on Essex Street on the Lower East Side. His father had a small shop in East New York. He graduated from Jamaica High School and received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University. He then graduated from Cornell Law School in 1915.
He married Belle Munves on December 25, 1919 and fathered three children.
Although he worked as counsel in dozens of notorious trials, Leibowitz is best remembered as counsel for the Scottsboro Boys, nine Southern African-American youths who were falsely accused of rape and sentenced to death in Alabama in 1931. After the US Supreme Court overturned the convictions in Powell v. Alabama (1932), Leibowitz was brought into the case by the International Labor Defense, an affiliate of the Communist Party of the United States. Many people expressed surprise that the Communists would ask Leibowitz to lead the Scottsboro defense, as he was not communist or radical but a mainstream Democrat who had never been associated with class-based causes. The choice of Leibowitz convinced many that the Communists were serious about achieving justice for the Alabama defendant and not interested only in making political hay. Leibowitz was asked to accept as co-counsel, by the ILD's chief attorney, Joseph R. Brodsky.[citation needed]
After reading the record of the first trials and becoming convinced of the defendants' innocence, Leibowitz accepted the ILD's offer. He did so against the urgings of his wife and many friends, who told him that he had no chance defending African-American defendants accused of raping white women in the Alabama of the 1930s. Leibowitz would work for the next four years on the cases without pay or reimbursement for most of his expenses.
Leibowitz quickly became an object of loathing around Decatur when he opened his defense of Haywood Patterson, the first defendant to be retried, by challenging Alabama's exclusion of blacks from the jury rolls. Local hatred of Leibowitz grew uglier, as death threats were made against him after his tough cross-examination of the alleged victim Victoria Price. One national reporter overheard several people saying, "It'll be a wonder if he gets out of here alive." Five uniformed members of the National Guard were assigned to protect him during the trial, with another 150 available to defend against a possible lynch mob. The famous photo above was widely distributed to show the extent to which Leibowitz and these defendants had to be protected by the National Guard to keep the mob away from them during the Decatur trials.
Leibowitz was stunned by the jury's guilty verdict in Patterson's 1933 trial. He compared the verdict to "the act of spitting on the tomb of Abraham Lincoln." Back in New York after the trial, Leibowitz vowed to defend the defendants "until hell freezes over." Speaking before enthusiastic audiences sometimes numbering in the thousands, he promised to take guilty verdicts to the US Supreme Court and back until Alabama finally gave up: "It'll be a merry-go-round, and if some Ku Kluxer doesn't put a bullet through my head, I'll go right along until they let the passengers off." Leibowitz's determined efforts won the affection of his clients. Haywood Patterson said of Leibowitz, "I love him more than life itself."
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Samuel Leibowitz
Samuel Simon Leibowitz (August 14, 1893 – January 11, 1978) was a Romanian-born American criminal defense attorney. He was best known for representing the Scottsboro Boys, and later became a justice of the New York State Supreme Court.
Samuel Simon Leibowitz was born in Iași, Kingdom of Romania, on August 14, 1893. He was the first child of Romanian Jewish immigrants, Isaac and Bina Lebeau, and arrived in New York City on March 14, 1897. A neighbor recommended that Isaac Lebeau should Americanize his last name to prosper even further as a businessman and so it was changed to Leibowitz.
The family lived in a tenement on Essex Street on the Lower East Side. His father had a small shop in East New York. He graduated from Jamaica High School and received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University. He then graduated from Cornell Law School in 1915.
He married Belle Munves on December 25, 1919 and fathered three children.
Although he worked as counsel in dozens of notorious trials, Leibowitz is best remembered as counsel for the Scottsboro Boys, nine Southern African-American youths who were falsely accused of rape and sentenced to death in Alabama in 1931. After the US Supreme Court overturned the convictions in Powell v. Alabama (1932), Leibowitz was brought into the case by the International Labor Defense, an affiliate of the Communist Party of the United States. Many people expressed surprise that the Communists would ask Leibowitz to lead the Scottsboro defense, as he was not communist or radical but a mainstream Democrat who had never been associated with class-based causes. The choice of Leibowitz convinced many that the Communists were serious about achieving justice for the Alabama defendant and not interested only in making political hay. Leibowitz was asked to accept as co-counsel, by the ILD's chief attorney, Joseph R. Brodsky.[citation needed]
After reading the record of the first trials and becoming convinced of the defendants' innocence, Leibowitz accepted the ILD's offer. He did so against the urgings of his wife and many friends, who told him that he had no chance defending African-American defendants accused of raping white women in the Alabama of the 1930s. Leibowitz would work for the next four years on the cases without pay or reimbursement for most of his expenses.
Leibowitz quickly became an object of loathing around Decatur when he opened his defense of Haywood Patterson, the first defendant to be retried, by challenging Alabama's exclusion of blacks from the jury rolls. Local hatred of Leibowitz grew uglier, as death threats were made against him after his tough cross-examination of the alleged victim Victoria Price. One national reporter overheard several people saying, "It'll be a wonder if he gets out of here alive." Five uniformed members of the National Guard were assigned to protect him during the trial, with another 150 available to defend against a possible lynch mob. The famous photo above was widely distributed to show the extent to which Leibowitz and these defendants had to be protected by the National Guard to keep the mob away from them during the Decatur trials.
Leibowitz was stunned by the jury's guilty verdict in Patterson's 1933 trial. He compared the verdict to "the act of spitting on the tomb of Abraham Lincoln." Back in New York after the trial, Leibowitz vowed to defend the defendants "until hell freezes over." Speaking before enthusiastic audiences sometimes numbering in the thousands, he promised to take guilty verdicts to the US Supreme Court and back until Alabama finally gave up: "It'll be a merry-go-round, and if some Ku Kluxer doesn't put a bullet through my head, I'll go right along until they let the passengers off." Leibowitz's determined efforts won the affection of his clients. Haywood Patterson said of Leibowitz, "I love him more than life itself."