
|
Reuben Kramer's monumental bronze sculpture of Justice Thurgood Marshall stands outside the U.S. Courthouse in Baltimore, the Justice's hometown. In his early years as a private lawyer in Baltimore, Justice Marshall often represented the indigent. Three criminal cases had a profound effect upon his development as a lawyer. In 1936, he persuaded an all-white jury in Baltimore to acquit a weak-minded youngster on the charge of murder. He successfully represented a criminal defense attorney charged with the "ethical violation" of maintaining that his client's conviction was tainted by racial prejudice. And in 1935, James Gross, a young man whom Justice Marshall unsuccessfully represented on a murder charge, was hanged in the Maryland Penitentiary. |
|
|||