Moore v. Dempsey 261 U.S. 86 (1923)

• Author: Kenneth L. Karst
• Pages: 1757-1758

Page 1757

Moore was a landmark for two of the twentieth century's most important constitutional developments: the emergence of the DUE PROCESS clause of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT as a limitation on state CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, and the assumption by the federal judiciary of a major responsibility for supervising the fairness of state criminal processes, through HABEAS CORPUS proceedings.

For all its importance, the case began as a squalid episode of racist ferocity. Returning from WORLD WAR I, a black Army veteran sought to organize black tenant farmers of Phillips County, Arkansas, into a farmers' union. In October 1919?a year disfigured by racial violence in both North and South?these farmers held a meeting in a rural church to plan efforts to obtain fair accountings from their white landlords. At this remove in time it requires effort to understand that such a meeting, in such a place, for such a purpose, was seen as revolutionary. A sheriff's deputy fired at the church; blacks who were armed fired back, killing the deputy and wounding his companion. Hundreds of new deputies were sworn; they and hundreds of troops arrested most of the county's black farmers, killing resisters. Responsible estimates of the black dead ranged from twenty-five to 200.

About 120 blacks were indicted for various crimes, including the murder of the deputy. The trial juries, like the grand jury that had issued the INDICTMENTS, were all white. Twelve men were convicted of murder and sentenced to death; dozens of others were sentenced to long prison terms. The twelve sentenced to death filed APPEALS in two groups of six each. One group, after multiple appeals, was released in 1923 by order of the Arkansas Supreme Court, for excessive delay in their retrial. The convictions of the remaining six, however, were affirmed by the state supreme court, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari. They unsuccessfully sought habeas corpus in the state courts, and again the Supreme Court declined to review the case.

By now the NAACP had mounted a national fund-raising drive to support the six petitioners. Their execution, set for September 1921, was postponed by the filing of a habeas corpus petition in the federal district court. That court dismissed the writ. On direct appeal, the Supreme Court reversed, 7?2, with an opinion by Justice OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. (The opinion refers, apparently erroneously, only to the five petitioners who were tried together...