Kennon C. Whittle

[1] In 1944, he was appointed judge of the Seventh Judicial Circuit and, in 1951, was elected to the Supreme Court of Appeals.

Judge Whittle drew controversy when he oversaw the trial of the "Martinsville Seven," a group of seven black men accused of raping a white woman in January 1949.

Alerted to the case and its growing controversy, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) campaigned against the verdicts, arguing that the sentences violated the equal-protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution (no white man had ever been sentenced to death in Virginia for rape).

In denying the appeal of one of the 'Martinsville Seven,' Justice Edward W. Hudgins of Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that the death penalty "does not depend upon the race of the accused, but on the circumstances, aggravation and enormity of the crime...the law applies to all alike regardless of race or creed."

"Francis Grayson, a man of 37 years of age, saw the four men attacking Mrs. Floyd," Judge Hudgins wrote of the appellant.