The Three Death Sentences of Clarence Henderson: A Battle for Racial Justice During the Dawn of the Civil Rights Era by Chris Joyner

Author:Chris Joyner [Joyner, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781419756368
Google: em02zgEACAAJ
Published: 2022-01-11T04:55:42.407474+00:00

CHAPTER 13

THE SECOND TRIAL

It was no surprise that the NAACP reached out to Dan Duke. With a Black man’s neck on the line, the organization wanted a white face to present to an all-white Southern jury, and Duke was a natural fit. He was a capable lawyer with a crusading streak. He also was a politician, and, in the turbid waters of State v. Henderson II, there was some politicking to do. Even so, Duke’s first move in Boykin’s courtroom was risky. The case had already been delayed and a jury seated, but he asked for a continuance.

Slicking down his dark suit coat as he stood, Duke poured out the grease as only a seasoned Georgia politician could.

“My only reason for making this statement is because of the intrusion of certain people to exploit this case,” he explained. “These people have only sought to use the events of the trial, which they know nothing about, for the purpose of propaganda.”1

Boykin nodded. It had been just a few months since the judge angrily ordered Homer Chase, chairman of the Georgia Communist Party, locked up indefinitely. Chase was a fugitive from Boykin’s court, a fact that had the judge fuming.

Duke pivoted from outrage to flattery.

“I wish to state I have every confidence in this court, every confidence in the learning of the judge on the bench, and his desire and his ability to insure a fair and impartial trial,” he said, then added as another nod to the Red menace, “in accordance with the American conception of justice.”2

This flattery was a hard bit to swallow, but it was a necessary show of fealty to the man in the black robe. After all, just four months earlier, Duke’s co-counsel, Robinson and Moore, had stood before Boykin on charges of contempt of court for their role in the “framed” flyer that suggested Boykin, among others, had conspired to convict Henderson unjustly. And only a few months before that, Boykin had threatened to put Duke in jail.

But Duke wasn’t only aiming at Boykin. His soft words flowed in luscious baritone for the “able and capable prosecutor” Wright Lipford and the fine people of Carroll County and their “love of liberty and justice.”

The jury listened appreciatively. In making a routine motion, Duke was managing an extra opening argument.

“I think proper for me to make this statement, not for the purpose of flattery,” he said without irony, “but in order to make my position clear that I am here primarily in an attempt to see that the trial is conducted in accordance with the law and that complete justice be done, in so far as our legal system permits it to be done.”

Under the circumstances, Duke’s motion for a delay in the trial was a dead letter. The trial was going to happen. But that was hardly the point. He was softening hardened ground.

He took a deep breath and launched back in. Henderson was “an ignorant man” facing the prospect of death. This is a serious matter, and the air should be cleared, he said.

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