"Spineless Judges and Shyster Lawyers": Criminal Justice in New Orleans, 1920-1945.

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  • Author(s): ADLER, JEFFREY S.
  • Source:
    Journal of Social History. Summer2016, Vol. 49 Issue 4, p904-927. 24p.
  • Additional Information
    • Subject Terms:
      CRIMINAL justice system; CONVICTION rates; HOMICIDE; RACISM; SEGREGATION of African Americans; HISTORY of New Orleans (La.); TWENTIETH century; HISTORY; SOCIAL history; UNITED States history
    • Subject Terms:
      LOUISIANA; NEW Orleans (La.); UNITED States
    • Abstract:
      Focusing on the prosecution of homicide cases, this essay analyzes the operation of the criminal justice system in New Orleans from 1920 through 1945. Despite the far-ranging legal and institutional developments of the era, few homicide suspects were convicted--only 17.8 percent. Race-based patterns of prosecution and conviction, however, diverged during this period. For white suspects, conviction rates dropped by one-third, while for African American suspects they tripled, rising from half the white rate to double the white homicide conviction rate, as the New Orleans criminal justice system emerged as a key tool to fend off challenges to Jim Crow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
    • Abstract:
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