kikipeepers asked
CUTHBERT, Ga. - Lena Baker claimed she was being held against her will by a drunken white man and acted in self-defense when she wrested his gun away and shot him. For a black maid in the segregated South in 1944, her story was a tough sell to a jury of 12 white men. Her murder trial lasted just a day, without a single witness called by her court-appointed lawyer. She was convicted and sentenced to death. Now relatives of the only woman ever executed in Georgia's electric chair are returning to Cuthbert to honor Baker and try to clear her name with the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole. 'The family doesn't need to go down in history with a bad name,' said Roosevelt Curry, 59, the grandson of Baker's brother. Since 1943, the board has granted only two pardons for people who have proved their innocence. One also was granted posthumously for Leo Frank, who was lynched in 1915 while appealing a murder conviction. Board spokeswoman Heather Hedrick said pardon requests usually are filed by living people convicted of less severe crimes, such as drug offenses or robbery, who want to restore such rights as voting and owning a gun. 'I can understand why that would be important for her family to get a pardon for her,' Hedrick said. 'But the point is to restore political and civil rights, and in this case, I don't know if that would be appropriate...'
143 answers · 0 comments
Answer this yourself in the app
See how this splits by age, gender, and region in the app.
