Joan Little

Nearly three months later, before dawn on August 27, 1974, a police officer delivering a drunken prisoner to the Beaufort County jail discovered the body of jailer Clarence Alligood, 62, on Joan Little's bunk, naked from the waist down. Alligood had suffered stab wounds to the temple and the heart area from an icepick. Semen was discovered on his leg. Little was missing.[6] She turned herself in to North Carolina authorities more than one week later, and said that she had killed Alligood while defending herself against sexual assault.[7]

Clarence Alligood had a record of forcing female inmates to take part in sexual favors as payment for gifts he'd given them. Other inmates had previously stated that he had given them gifts in the form of snacks and magazines and expected to receive sexual favors.[8]

Since Little had fled from prison she was known as a fugitive and the police were therefore authorised to kill her on sight; due to this, Little turned herself in at Raleigh. Little was put on trial for murder and was facing the North Carolina gas chamber.[4] Little had found refugee in the home of an older black man from her community and had also received offers to seek refuge in other countries.[8]

Little was charged with first degree murder, which carried an automatic death sentence. The capital status of the case, and the fact that North Carolina was home to over one third of all the death penalty cases in the United States, drew the attention of anti-death penalty and prisoners' rights advocates.[4] Little's trial brought attention to her being the first women of color to cite self-defense during sexual assault against an accusation of murder.[6] The racial component drew the attention of civil rights activists, and the gender component drew the attention of feminists.[6] The combination of these three factors, along with sophisticated fundraising tactics, allowed the Joan Little Defense Committee to raise over $350,000.[9] Jerry Paul and Karen Bethea-Shields (Karen Galloway) were her attorneys. The question of whether or not black people were treated equally by the criminal justice systems in the American South drew the attention of the national media.[9]

The defense team made crucial use of applied social science, including the new method of scientific jury selection, which had just come into existence in 1972.[10] The defense commissioned surveys with a view to comparing popular attitudes among white people toward black people between Beaufort and Pitt Counties, in the state's northeast, and the north central area of the state. The results showed that unfavorable racial stereotypes were more strongly held in Beaufort County. For example, about two-thirds of the respondents in Beaufort and Pitt Counties believed that black women were lewder than white women and that black people were more violent than white people.[11] Armed with this information, Paul successfully petitioned to have the trial moved to the state capital of Raleigh.

At trial, the prosecution contended that Little was a lewd woman who seduced Alligood only to murder him to enable her escape. In two days of testimony, Little testified that Alligood, who at well over 200 pounds was nearly twice her size,[12] had come to her cell three times between 10:00 pm and 3:00 am to solicit sex, finally forcing her at the point of an ice pick to perform oral sex. She testified she was able to seize the ice pick while he was seated on her bunk because he had let his guard down in the moments after his orgasm. She stabbed him repeatedly, and she testified he resisted fiercely and wrestled her, but that given his wounded state, she had been able to get free of him.[7] Attorney Jerry Paul made liberal use of the jury's Southern Christian sympathies, characterizing his client as a religious woman who found solace in the Bible in times of trouble.[4]

William Griffin was the prosecutor who had concluded that Little had lured the 62-year-old jailer so she could escape.[13]

When the autopsy came back, it was concluded that Little's explanation of the incident was true. The autopsy concluded that the eleven stab wounds given to Alligood were in self-defense. Only one stab had been a fatal one, while the other ten were clear signs of self-defense against an attacker.[8]

The jury of six whites and six African Americans deliberated for one hour and 25 minutes and rendered a verdict of not guilty. Among them were Jennie Lancaster, Pecola Jones, and 26-year-old jury spokesperson Mark Neilsen.[14]

Jerry Paul had Joan Little walk around in front of the media with the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" in order to encourage comparisons between her and Tom Robinson, the imprisoned black man of the novel.[15]

The Free Joan campaigns were successful enough that Joan's counsel were able to get the first-degree murder charge reduced to second degree. Judge Hobgood noted that the prosecution did not have liable evidence.[4]

Joan Little was returned to prison to serve the remainder of her sentence for breaking and entering. One month before she would have been eligible for parole, she made an escape. She was caught and then convicted and sentenced for the escape. She was freed in June 1979 and moved to New York City.[16]

Joan Little was the first woman to be acquitted of murder committed in self-defense against a sexual assault.[9]

African American women were given the right to sexual-assault defense against their Anglo-white male assaulter/rapist. This was all possible with the campaign that stood behind Ms. Little during the full trial.[17]

Joan Little's trial attracted the attention of many political activists, including Angela Davis; Rosa Parks, who formed a local chapter for Little's defense; and Katherine Galloway, a former Duke University Law student who worked closely with Joan Little on her case. Galloway spent countless hours with Ms. Little and came to know her better than anyone else during the trial.[8] Others who took part in Little's case included Maulana Karenga (Ron Karenga), Ralph Abernathy, who spoke during a protest outside Beaufort County courthouse,[18] Bernice Johnson Reagon, who contributed to funding support for Ms. Little,[19] and Dr. Larry Little, a Black Panther Party leader (Winston-Salem chapter), who stood by Little's side and was vocal in his concerns about the trial and about subjects that weren't well covered during the trial.[20]

During the Little trial, other women came forward to testify about Alligood's history of sexual assault in prison, including African American women Ida Mae Roberson and Phyllis Ann Moore. Their testimony encouraged Little's jury to lean toward her defense.[18]