Georgia to pardon executed black woman after 60 years

WASHINGTON - It has taken more than 60 years, but finally the state of Georgia is to pardon Lena Baker for a murder that probably would never have been considered a murder anywhere but in the racist, segregated world of the old Deep South.

Ms Baker was a black maid, aged 44, who in March 1945 became the first (and only) woman to die in Georgia's electric chair. Her crime was to have killed her white master - a man, she claimed, who kept her as a sexual slave and whom she killed in self-defence when he was about to set about her with an iron crowbar.

Now, for only the third time in its history, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has decided to issue a posthumous pardon.

On August 30, the Board will present a proclamation to her descendants, acknowledging that the death sentence and execution were a terrible miscarriage of justice.

No-one is disputing that Ms Baker committed the crime. But the Board's members had concluded that its decision to allow the execution to go ahead was "a grievous error," a spokesman said.

"This case called out for mercy."

In another age, or another place, Ms Baker would have been convicted of aggravated manslaughter at worst, an offence which usually carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.

"In some ways it's 60 years too late," said John Cole Vodicka, director of a prison rights group that has helped the descendants in the fight for a pardon.

"But it's gratifying to see that this blatant instance of injustice has finally been recognised for what it was - a legal lynching."

E.B. Knight, her employer, was killed on April 30, 1944. The trial of Ms Baker was set for August 14 1944. On that single day, an all-white, all-male jury was picked, the trial was held, a verdict of murder was reached, and the judge pronounced the death sentence.

No forensic evidence was presented, Ms Baker's state-appointed lawyer called no outside witnesses in her defence, while hearsay evidence against her was allowed.

The appeals process was non-existent. Her attorney dropped an initial move for a retrial, and the pardons board turned her demand for clemency.

On January 6, 1945, Ms Baker was moved to death row, and two months later she was executed.

In today's US by contrast, appeals in capital murder cases routinely last for years, and sometimes drag on for decades.

Lena Baker was put to death less than seven months after she was sentenced, barely 10 months after committing the crime.

During the trial, she testified that Mr Knight, a man 23 years older than herself, had held her against her will in a grist mill and threatened to kill her if she left. She never denied seizing his gun and shooting him, but insisted she had acted in self-defence when he moved against her with an iron bar.

"He would have killed me if I had not done what I did," she said, according to the official trial transcript (which runs to just 10 pages).

It has never been established whether she was forced into her sexual relationship with Mr Knight, or freely agreed to it. But the very fact of the relationship violated the racist taboos of the segregated South. To avoid inflaming these tensions, there was no funeral.

After the execution, her body was secretly taken 200 miles back to her home town, where she was buried in an unmarked grave outside the church where she had been a member of the choir. Only in summer 1998 was the grave given a concrete slab, bearing her name. Every year thereafter family members and supporters have gathered at the spot on the anniversary of her execution.

In May 2003, Lena Baker finally received a proper funeral. Now, in a fortnight's time, the restoration of her reputation will be complete.

"I believe she's somewhere around God's throne and can look down and smile," said Roosevelt Curry, Ms Baker's great nephew who has led the long effort to clear her name.

- THE INDEPENDENT