Matthew Van Meter

really interesting history that of course i didn't know anything about. partly because i was never taught our racist history, but also because this is an important case in law and i never learned much of anything in that realm.

"...Prince Edward county, Virginia, which was one of the school districts lumped in with Brown v Board of Education, gave up on public education all together. Shortly after Brown was decided, several all white private schools were opened by a nonprofit organization that was essentially a branch of the government. Once every white child had a guaranteed spot at a private school, the county simply cut all funding to its public schools. Eventually the Supreme Court ordered the public schools reopened, but for five years there were no schools at all for black residents of Prince Edward. But even when the public schools reopened, few whites attended and the county was nearly as segregated as it had been before Brown. White kids studied in "academies" while black kids languished in underfunded public schools."… (meer)

An intervention on the side of the road turned into a junky, Jim Crow misdemeanor - unjust but less egrigious than hundreds of others that year all over the south and the nation. That case...changed American law.

in 1966, in Plaquemain, Louisiana, Gary Duncan, a 19-year-old black man spotted his young cousins in what looked to be a confrontation with three white boys. In his attempt to stop a possible fight, he touched one of the white teens. He had no idea that this encounter would have such a profound effect, not only on him, but the country as a whole.

Gary was arrested and convicted of Cruelty to Juveniles. Despite the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation was still rampant in many parts of the United States but especially in the south and Plaquemine was no exception. Gary's lawyer, a young idealistic northerner who had come to Louisiana to help black defendants, appealed the conviction on the grounds that it violated Duncan's right to a jury trial. At the time it was understood that the right to a jury trial referred only to the federal court. However, Sobel knew there was a a push to apply the Bill of Rights to the states so, despite the rather long odds against winning, Richard decided to demand a a trial by jury in Gary's case. The appeal went all the way to the Supreme Court eventually overturning the conviction. Although it eventually became clear that there were limitations to the application of Duncan v. Louisiana, it 'opened the way for changes in criminal procedure that have affected the outcome of millions of cases'.

Deep Delta Justice by Matthew Van Meter is non-fiction but, despite the subject matter, it is no dry tome, accessible only to lawyers and academics. In fact, it is as compelling and unputdownable as any novel. It is well-written and well-researched using both primary and secondary sources including interviews with Gary and his family. Although the court case is the main focus of the book, Van Meter also looks at the political climate in Plaquemine at the time, including the leading political figures and the pushback against lawyers like Sobel, as well as outlining some of he major civil rights issues like voter suppression, public funding for private schools, and racial inequalities within the justice system, issues that still challenge the legal system to this day.

… (meer)