REPORT OF

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON JUDGES AND SOLICITORS J. T. STOKELY, Chairman

OF BIRMINGHAM

To the President and Members of the Alabama State Bar Association:

Your Special Committee, appointed under a resolution adopted at the last Annual Meeting, to consider a suggested method, with recommendations, covering the question of Method of Election, Tenure of Office, and Salaries of Judges and Solicitors, beg leave to report as follows:

The members of the Bar in many of the States have undertaken studies and investigations of the serious questions involved in the work of your Committee. Perhaps the most learned discussions have appeared in the reports of the American Judicature Society. That organization publishes a journal; and in its issue of April, 1920, there is set forth a report of considerable length, with final recommendations, on the subject. The conclusions there given seem theoretically sound, but they are probably more or less academic. It is certainly true that the recommendations of that Association could not be put in force in their entirety in Alabama at this time, because of conflict with the constitutional law of this State. Your Committee is of the opinion that it would not be practical or reasonable, or wise, to ask the people of Alabama to amend the Constitution for the purpose of accommodating the best opinion on the selection of judges. It ought to be possible to modify the work and the recommendations of the American Judicature Society in such manner as to bring them in harmony with the existing Constitution and statutes of the State. Very serious questions are involved, not only of law, but of public policy, and your Committee has not at this time been able to reach conclusions which it is satisfied to submit to your Association.

We have undertaken, by correspondence with lawyers in other States, and by consultation with members of the Bar and members of the judiciary, in Alabama, to get the benefit of the mature judgment of individuals in many localities. We, therefore, request that the Committee be continued for a full and final report, with definite recommendations, to the next meeting of the Association. We feel free to request this, inasmuch as no judicial officers will be nominated until August next year, some three or four months after the next meeting of the Associtaion.

With this end in view, and with the promise of faithful attention to the work assigned, we submit this report with a request for further time. We promise, in the meantime, the diligent and serious consideration which the gravity of the questions involved merits, and for our aid and assistance we invite the recommendations and suggestions of each member of the Association.

EMMET O'NEAL

OF FLORENCE

THE STRANGE CASE OF ERVIN POPE

Five times convicted by the jury for murder in the first degree and five times sentenced to death by hanging, makes the case of Ervin Pope one of the most remarkable in the judicial records of Alabama. Four times was the sentence of conviction reversed and the cause remanded for new trial in the court below by the Supreme Court of the State, and on the fifth and last appeal, the judgment of conviction was affirmed and the day set for the execution. Confined in jail on the day following the murder of James McClurkin on the 20th of April, 1909, Erwin Pope stubbornly fought the tremendous forces arrayed against him till the commutation of his sentence in the autumn of 1914. Without money or influence and with only such aid after his second trial as came to him from young lawyers to whom the court had committed his defense, and moreover confronted during the whole time by a hostile, active and aggressive public sentiment, the fact that Ervin Pope succeeded in escaping the gallows within whose shadow he had lived for over five years, distinguishes his case as one of the most unusual and interesting in the criminal annals of the State.

Ervin Pope was a negro, and as shown by his features, a full blooded African. He had been in fairly good circumstances for a member of his race, as he owned his own farm as well as a residence, and enjoyed excellent credit with his merchant. At the time of his arrest he was reputed to be worth about ten thousand dollars and had borne a good character as a peaceful and law-abiding citizen.

His property was soon exhausted by the long and bitter fight he made for his life and after the second trial and

appeal, he was unable to employ counsel for his defense and was represented by young attorneys appointed by the

court.

Under the laws of Alabama, any defendant indicted for a capital felony and unable to employ counsel must be represented by a lawyer appointed by the court who serves without compensation. The young lawyers, therefore, who so ably and faithfully represented him on three trials and three appeals were never compensated for their services and yet it can be said to their credit that they fought his case with the same zeal and intelligence as if they had been paid handsome fees. As declared by the laws of Alabama, one of the duties of an attorney is "To never reject for any consideration personal to themselves the cause of the defenseless or oppressed." The young lawyers appointed to conduct the defense of Ervin Pope loyally obeyed the lofty mandate of the law. Assigned a thankless task, without any pecuniary reward, they did not allow popular clamor and a hostile and even bitter public sentiment to lessen their efforts or prevent them from the use of every weapon the law afforded for the protection of their client.

MURDER OF JAMES MCCLURKIN

The crime for which Ervin Pope was indicted and tried was the murder of James McClurkin, who operated both a gin and corn mill several miles from the little town of Oxford, in Calhoun County.

McClurkin was unmarried, his elderly sister and his miller, Earnest Dodgen, being the only members of his household. He lived on the hill above the gin and mill, two separate structures, the residence being nearer the gin than the mill.

On the night of April 19th, 1909, the family retired about ten o'clock. Some time after midnight, Miss Rachel McClurkin was aroused by the sound of a wagon in front of the mill. She immediately called to her brother and asked him if he thought the mill was being robbed. They both

got out of their beds and she says that it was about fifteen minutes from the time her brother arose before he was dressed. She lit the lamp to enable her brother to dress. At the time they arose, she states that the wagon seemed to be about the bridge, going towards Oxford.

Her brother, after dressing, went down to the mill, got his mule and came back to where his sister was standing at the gin and she gave him a coat to ride on. He stated that he intended to follow the wagon. She stood alone at the gin, watching her brother till he rode away, still watching till she became chilled by the cool night air and was forced to return to the house. When she returned to the house, the clock struck two. She never again saw her brother alive. About daylight the next morning, Earnest Dodgen, the miller went to Oxford in search of James McClurkin, who had failed to return from his pursuit of the "man who robbed the gin." He stated on his examination that "the wagon tracks led from the mill past the gin house and on to Berry Boswells, and the wagon seemed to make a sharp turn in the alley at John Body's house, where some cotton seed was spilled."

Beyond John Body's house, he said, the ground was hard and that so many buggies and other vehicles had passed that he was unable to trace the wagon any further. This statement becomes important in connection with other evidence on that subject offered by the State, as will afterwards appear. Lying in a cotton patch near the home of John Body, the dead body of James McClurkin was found. His head had been battered and crushed and near his body were the bloody rocks and sticks with which the murder had been committed.

The murder of James McClurkin, who was a peaceful and law-abiding citizen and very popular, aroused intense excitement and indignation in Calhoun county and especially in the neighborhood in which he lived. This indignation was increased by the cruel and brutal manner in