Haywood Patterson, along with several other African-American defendants, were tried for raping two white women in 1931 in Scottsboro, Alabama.

The Communist Party of the United States assisted the defendants and appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the convictions in 1932 (in the Powell v. Alabama decision) due to lack of legal counsel.

In spite of lack of evidence, the jury sentenced Patterson to death in the electric chair.

This decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, on the basis that the absence of African Americans from the jury pool denied the defendants due process.

In this trial, the verdicts were again guilty, but sentences were long prison terms rather than the death penalty.