Judge vacates 1961 trespass convictions of 'Friendship Nine' sit-in protesters
A South Carolina judge has tossed the 1961 trespass convictions of sit-in protesters known as the Friendship Nine.
Judge John C. Hayes III read aloud from his order vacating the convictions in a hearing streamed live on Wednesday morning. The Rock City Herald had live tweets, while Reuters and CNN previewed the hearing.
Hayes is the nephew of the judge who originally sentenced the protesters to 30 days of hard labor for the sit-in at a segregated lunch counter, CNN says.
Hayes said the protesters who sat down at the lunch counter were in reality standing up for the American dream, and the evidence used to convict them was “patently flawed and unjust.”
The protesters were represented on Wednesday by Ernest Finney Jr., the civil rights lawyer who originally represented the protesters and later served on the South Carolina Supreme Court. Local prosecutor Kevin Brackett supported Finney’s motion.
One of the protesters, John Gaines, later received a law degree Howard University and joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
