Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

the houses of Norma’s relatives; Willie would testify that he “thought she might have gotten some way to get home.” On one of those stops, Willie’s sister-in-law showed Howard a picture of Norma. Only then, it would appear, did Curtis Howard figure that he knew where Norma was.

    O RMOND POWERS HAD no problem expounding the flaws in the prosecution’s case against the Groveland Boys: the lack of medical evidence; Norma Padgett’s reputation and credibility, both dubious; “vagaries in both the husband’s and wife’s stories”; “a series of marital rifts” that were, Powers said, “substantiated.” Powers told the former Sentinel editor M. C. Thomas that, in his opinion, “the four boys were all mental superiors to the alleged rape victim and her off-again, on-again spouse.”
    What Powers could not to his own satisfaction explain were the strange coincidences that brought Curtis Howard into the Groveland story, most notably the fact that Howard had actually “seen the girl not far from the alleged attack scene.” Powers speculated that Howard might have a “Dick Tracy complex”—he was frequently observed hanging around the sheriff’s office with his uncle, Deputy Leroy Campbell, when not at the filling station—and thus “he apparently started looking for the missing girl on his own hook.” What did not make sense to Powers, though, was that Howard would fail to attach any significance to a young blond girl he’d seen by the side of the road at the exact time that he’d set out in his Buick to look for a young blond girl who’d reportedly been abducted by four black men at a roadside.
    Rowland Watts compiled a list of “comments on defense in second Groveland trials” should the NAACP be successful before the U.S. Supreme Court. It was clear that Watts gave credence to Mr. and Mrs. Twiss’s statements. Watts believed that Curtis Howard had not driven past Norma Padgett on the morning of July 16, 1949, but rather, the young filling-station attendant had driven to that spot and let Norma out of his car by the side of the road. In his comments, under the section heading “Discredit Curtis Howard,” Watts listed a series of questions: “Why did he go to Groveland in the morning? Did he stop his car at Okahumpka? How close was Norma to car? Why didn’t he stop, get out, and talk to her, knowing that a girl had been abducted in that area? Why didn’t he mention fact of having seen girl to Yates and Padgett in café? Try to pin his own activities that night and the probability that he knew the Padgetts before.”

    O N MARSHALL’S RETURN to the New York office after his travels in Tokyo and Korea, which had overextended his calendar and his energy, he resumed working with his New York office staff on preparation of the Groveland Boys case for the Supreme Court. He had intended to argue the case himself, but his trip to the Far East, and his monthlong absence, made him reconsider his plan. He faced an awkward decision. While Robert Carter was more than capable as a counsel, he was not as especially familiar with the case as Jack Greenberg, who had prepared the brief. Greenberg, on the other hand, lacked Carter’s experience, since he had only recently started working at the NAACP offices, and although he had already gained Marshall’s confidence, he was not yet ready, in Marshall’s opinion, to argue his own Supreme Court case.
    In early December, Franklin Williams wrote to Marshall, pleading for the chance to argue before the Supreme Court. “I am sure you can appreciate my having this desire,” Williams wrote, adding that it “would be the logical conclusion” of his association with the Groveland case. Marshall, however, was dismissive. “To pull you out of the west coast for a week or two would certainly deprive the Association of your services during that period,” he wrote, adding, “I think you will agree that it will be better to leave things as they are.”
    His point made, Marshall soon realized that he did not have any other real choices. His differences with Williams did not prevent him from acknowledging the younger attorney’s notable legal talent, not to mention his unmatched grasp of the Groveland case, and in the winter of 1951 he brought the “exiled” Williams back east to argue Shepherd v. Florida before the Supreme Court. Marshall acknowledged that Williams was not merely the best available choice for the job but also probably the best lawyer to