Editing Moore v. Dempsey (section)

==The appeal==
The NAACP organized the appeal for defendants in the Elaine case. It raised more than $50,000 and hired [[Scipio Africanus Jones]], an African-American attorney from [[Little Rock]], and Colonel [[George W. Murphy]], a Confederate veteran, former Attorney-General for the State of Arkansas, for the defense team.

The defendants' cases took two paths. The defendants' lawyers obtained reversal of the verdicts by the Arkansas Supreme Court in six of the cases: Ed Ware, Will Wordlow, Albert Giles, Joe Fox, Alf Banks Jr., and John Martin (henceforth Ware et al.) due to a defect in the wording of the jury verdict. The court ruled that the jury had failed to specify whether the defendants were guilty of murder in the first or second degree; those cases were accordingly sent back to the lower court for retrial. They were convicted again, but the state supreme court overturned the verdicts, saying that discrimination against black jurors (the juries were all-white) was contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Because the lower court had not acted upon their cases for more than two years by April 1923, under Arkansas law the defendants were entitled to be released. Jones applied for and gained an order for their release from the Arkansas Supreme Court on June 25, 1923.

The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the death sentences of Moore and the other five murder defendants, rejecting the challenge to the [[all-white jury]] as untimely. It found that the mob atmosphere and use of coerced testimony did not deny the defendants the due process of law. Those defendants unsuccessfully petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of ''[[certiorari]]'' from the Arkansas Supreme Court's decision.

The defendants petitioned for a writ of ''[[habeas corpus]],'' alleging that the proceedings that took place in the Arkansas state court, while ostensibly complying with trial requirements, satisfied these only in form. They argued that the accused were convicted under pressure of the armed mob, with blatant disregard for their constitutional rights, and that pre-trial publicity had prejudiced the proceedings. The defense team had originally intended to file this petition in federal court, but the only sitting judge was assigned to other judicial duties in [[Minnesota]] at the time and would not return to Arkansas until after the defendants' scheduled execution date. The state [[Court of equity|chancery]] court issued the writ. Although it was later overturned by the State Supreme Court, this process postponed the execution date long enough to permit the defendants to seek ''habeas corpus'' relief in federal court.

The state of Arkansas argued a narrowly legalistic position, based on the United States Supreme Court's earlier decision in ''[[Frank v. Mangum]]'' (1915).  The State did not dispute the defendants' evidence of torture used to obtain confessions or mob intimidation, but argued that, even if true, this did not amount to a denial of [[due process]]. The federal district court agreed, denying the writ.