National Affairs: Crime & Punishment

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At Alabama's Atmore prison farm, Jimmie Wilson, 55, a Negro handyman, awaited the bell's toll: he is under sentence to die in the electric chair next week. His crime: a $1.95 robbery.

Under Alabama law, robbery (which, by definition, requires violence or a threat of violence) can be a capital offense. In practice, the death penalty applies only to Negroes. Since 1927, when Alabama started using the electric chair, four prisoners have been executed for robbery. All were Negroes. For various crimes since 1927, Alabama has electrocuted a total of 22 whites, 124 Negroes.

One summer night a year ago, Jimmie Wilson, some moonshine under his belt, went to the back door of the home of Mrs. Estelle Barker, an elderly widow, in the dusty little town of Marion. As Wilson told it, he asked her to pay him in advance for some yard work he was supposed to do for her later that week, and she gave him some money. But as Estelle Barker, a white woman, told the story, Wilson threatened her into giving him money. And after he pocketed the $1.95, she said, he grabbed her and tried to ravish her.

Wilson's court-appointed lawyer objected that Wilson was being tried for robbery, not intent to rape, and that Witness Barker's obviously inflammatory testimony "infuriates the minds" of the jury. But the court overruled the objection, allowed Mrs. Barker to tell her story. That decision doomed Defendant Wilson.