The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-11-07
Minor DenOunces
Ritchie'S Attempt to
Excuse Lee Murder
Answers Lie N e gro
Was Given a Fair
Trial
Continued from Page y

the whole system of segregation, the
whole atmosphere of brutality, class
exploitation and discrimination in
schools jobs, railroads, theatres, res
taurants and courts of law in Mary
land and elsewhere, is the complete
guarantee that no Negro, under the
present system maintained by the
ruling class, can obtain on unpreju-
diced trial
Fuel Lee, an innocent man, was
found guilty by two juries." Yes,
in the first trial the jury was selected
illegally from an old list for the pur-
pose of ensuTing a lynching, and a
lynch verdict secured within thirty
two minutes Then, not because of
any love of justice on your part, Gov
ernor, or on the part of any of the
officers of Maryland State, but only
because Of the intervention of Com
munists, the first verdict was upset.
The second trial was different only
in the sense that the officers of the
law used certain subterfuges to cover
up the same lynching--the few Me-
groeS ON the jury panel were elm
mated by peremptory challenge and
the same results obtained, with what
ON the surface appeared to be legal
jury.
challenge your statement that
I 'every conceivable legal right the Ne
gro had was fully protected" He
was denied even his constitutional
right to choose his own attorney,
once at the beginning of the case,
and again toward the end. Judge
Joseph L. Bailey, in order to perfect
the lynching, declared that Attorney
Bernard AIDES, who held a retainer
from Fuel Lee to defend him, had
no standing in that court, and at
tempted to bar the attorney from the
defense. On the same day, Mayor
]. o. Byrd of Snowfall issued state
ment prohibiting the attorneys of
the International Labor Defense from
entering the town Of Snowfall on
the business of defending Fuel Lee.
On the same day, as result of this
purposeful lncitemeilt to lynching on
the part of a judge and public Off
cias, the attorney and a woman
assistant were attacked in Snowfall
by gang intent on lynching, and
were compelled to seek refuge in the
local jail. AT the end of the long
fight for Lee, his constitutional
rights were again violated, when the
Federal District Court in Baltimore
barred the attorneys, AIDES and Lev
inson, from arguing at it, bar a mo-
ton filed by these attorneys for
writs Of habeas corpus and certiorari.
Your allegation, which seems to
mean that the evidence was thor
oughly considered and decided
against him by the Court of Appeals
OF Maryland" etc., is not In accord
with the truth. No court of ap-
peals has ever passed on the evidence
on which Lee was convicted, or on
the preponderant evidence of his in
nocence, or the evidence suppressed
at the first trial and duplicating a
white neighbor and trade rival of the
white family that was murdered. This
evidence was completely ignored at
A both trials. No court of appeals con-
Sidered the evidence. They all re-
{ rhsed to review the question of the
= violation of Lees constitutional
rights. You yourself. as Governor of
the State Of Maryland with the power
to pardon, refused to consider the
evidence or the violation of rights.
Attorney AIDES was prevented from
arguing for the writ of certiorari.
and the prominent attorney appointed
by the court only to cover the ev-
clusion of the attorney chosen by
the defendant, refused to bring into
court necessary constitutional points.
Fuel Lee was denied every right as
citizen or as man. But the case
Of Fuel Lee Is not an exception. 1t
was lynching which took place in
side of the courtroom and on the
gallows by the hand of the officers
of the law - brutal, inexcusable,
fowardly lynching participated in by
rnhe Governor of the State of Mary
and. The murder Of Fuel Lee is not
In exception, say, but is one more
If the long list Of murders, the most
'ecent of which is the open lynch
ng of George Armwood at Princess
Anne, Md, on Oct. 10.
Lynchings are increasing during