based on Econgmist article
In Americus, Georgia, 4 Givil rights demonstrators, 3 of them white, have sperb nearly 3 months in prison, denied beil because the law under which they were chargod — the state's 90-year-old statute against incitement to insurrection = treats the crime asa capital offenca although the death «ia ponalty is not mandatory. The local prosecutor stated frankly that he had searched the statute books for a chargo which would prevent bail.....Another case which has provoked indignation is that of 3 young Negroes in Maryland who were convicted of rape and sentenced to death. Late last month Governor Tawes commuted these sentences to life imprisonment after private individuals produced new evidence that the 16-year-old white girl invloved had a record of promiscuity ond that her word was not to be trusted....(the case) has reised the question of whether the death penalty for rape is not a barbarous anachronism. The 17 southern states ....which retain it executed 446 men for rape between 1930 and 1962; of these 399 were Negroes.