Willie McGee (convict)

On Monday, December 3, 1945, McGee was indicted by the grand jury on a charge of rape, was arraigned in the circuit court, and a plea of not guilty was entered for him by the district attorney.[1]

The prosecution charged that McGee kept the money from a Laurel Wholesale Grocery delivery he made, and used it to buy whiskey. The next morning, police claimed that employees of the grocery store found McGee asleep in the delivery truck. He was picked up in Hattiesburg by the police the next afternoon. The jury deliberated for only two and a half minutes to return the guilty verdict.[1] On December 11, 1945, McGee was sentenced to death.[1]

The first trial initially attracted wide attention because National Guard troops were needed to escort the defendant from the Hinds County jail to Laurel, in Jones County. There were credible rumors of a white supremacist lynch mob that sought to break him out of the Laurel jail.[2] At the time, lynch mobs and vigilante justice were common in the south, and even some liberal southerners tacitly supported mob justice.[5][9] The trial was conducted under the protection of the troops and a military caravan returned McGee to Jackson by nightfall.[1]

Attorney Forrest B. Jackson stated that McGee's constitutional rights were violated during his trial and filed an appeal. Ultimately, the Mississippi Supreme Court found that the trial had violated McGee's rights because the trial court failed to consider McGee's motion for a change of venue.[10] A new trial was scheduled.[1]

The second trial was set for November 4, 1946, on the charge of rape which was a capital offense in Mississippi. No white men in Mississippi had ever been sentenced to death for rape, but Black men were often executed when convicted for the rape of white women.[5] McGee again applied for a change of venue. This time, Judge John C. Stennis (later a U.S. Senator from Mississippi for 42 years) granted the motion and the case was moved to Forrest County (Hattiesburg).[1] At that trial, after 11 minutes of deliberation, the all-white jury again returned a guilty verdict. Judge Burkitt Collins again sentenced McGee to death by electric chair, to be carried out on December 20, 1946.[1] On November 23, 1946, McGee's attorney filed an appeal. Again, the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned the verdict. This time it ruled that Jones County's practice of excluding African-American citizens from its grand juries violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.[10]

McGee's third trial began on February 16, 1948. For the first time in Jones County history, African Americans were registered as part of the 18-man grand jury. However, decades after the trial, one of the prosecutors allegedly boasted that they had changed the roll of grand jurors to falsely include two Black doctors whom they knew would remain silent.[5] Yet again, no Black people served on the actual jury.[5]

Testimony alleged that McGee entered Willette Hawkins's home through an outside window. It was suggested that he then violently assaulted and strangled her. The prosecution suggested that he then raced away in the stolen truck that he had parked some distance from the home. The prosecution played on the racial fears of a southern white jury by appealing to the stereotype of a sexually deviant and rapacious Black man.[1] The testimony of Willette Hawkins's husband was that their baby had been sick that night and that neither went to bed before 4 a.m., and then he occupied a back room 25 to 30 feet away from his wife's room. He had apparently heard nothing of this break in and violent assault until his wife came and woke him.[1]

Trial testimony of the alleged companion of McGee on the night of the assault stated he was on a wild joyride in the wholesale grocery truck McGee was driving. He testified that they drove around and returned to Laurel after consuming three half-pints of whiskey on the jaunt. They visited gambling houses in Laurel and left a house in "The Bottoms" about 4:00 am in the truck. He said that he left McGee and the truck at Masonite Drive and arrived at his own home half a block away at 4:15 am. Prosecutors played on the white jurors' racial stereotypes by suggesting that McGee had told another companion a few days before the rape, "I'm going to get me a white woman."[1]

After deliberating within less than an hour, on March 6, 1948, the jury returned to the court room with a guilty verdict. When the judge asked if McGee had anything to say, he responded, "Thank you, Judge, I have no fear."[1] The execution was set by Judge F. Burkitt Collins for Friday, April 9, 1948.