“It doesn’t take much evidence to convict a Negro”: Capital punishment, race, and rape in mid-20th-century Florida

Miller, Vivien

Abstract

Thirty men were executed for rape in Florida between 1940 and 1964, in a state undergoing rapid population growth, Sunbelt economic change, and black freedom struggle protest and activism. No white man was sentenced to death for the rape of a “Negro” girl or woman, and all twenty-nine African American men and one white man had been convicted of assaulting white girls or women. This essay focuses on these thirty capital cases and the compelling statistical evidence of selective execution by race to examine which acts of sexual violence were considered so heinous as to warrant the death penalty: gang rape, serial offending, and the invasion of the white family home by the burglar-turned-rapist. As in other southern states, Florida courtrooms were important sites of Civil Rights protest, as black defendants and their lawyers sought to challenge racial inequities in the prosecution of interracial sexual violence and the lack of due process afforded non-white offenders, although success was limited.

Citation

Miller, V. (2017). “It doesn’t take much evidence to convict a Negro”: Capital punishment, race, and rape in mid-20th-century Florida. Crime, histoire & societes = Crime, history & societies / International Association for the History of Crime and Criminal Justice, 21(1), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.4000/chs.1714

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 1, 2016
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Apr 7, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 17, 2020
• Journal: Crime, History & Societies
• Print ISSN: 1422-0857
• Electronic ISSN: 1663-4837
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1-19
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/chs.1714
• Keywords: rape death penalty florida
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1340425
• Publisher URL: https://journals.openedition.org/chs/1714