The Fantastic Case of the Trenton Six
(New York: NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 1951).
The “Trenton Six” raised issues of due process at a murder trial that captured national attention. Six young African American men were convicted in 1948 of the murder of an elderly shopkeeper in Trenton, New Jersey, and sentenced to death. They were arrested without warrants in a wide sweep of the city. Despite a number of evidential issues, the men came to trial on coerced confessions after several days of interrogation without access to attorneys. The convictions were reversed on appeal in the New Jersey Supreme Court for improper charges to the jury. Among the NAACP attorneys who organized the defense was a young Thurgood Marshall. In a new 13-week trial, four of the six defendants were acquitted, while circumstantial evidence resulted in convictions for the remaining two. Collis English died soon after in prison, and Ralph Cooper was paroled in 1954. The pamphlet below, published by the NAACP, reviews the case and calls for justice.
