San Diego (special) -- As this generation will long remember the O.J. Simpson murder trial and President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, so too do Americans who lived during the 1930s and 1940s remember the trial and retrials of the Scottsboro 9 -- a case which led, as a byproduct, to a U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting the exclusion of any racial group from jury pools.

Scottsboro: An American Tragedy recounts in a fast-moving 90 minutes a terrible case of racial injustice. The documentary places heavy enough emphasis on the role played by a powerful Jewish defense attorney to qualify the work for screening at the upcoming San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

The Scottsboro 9 were a group of black teenagers who had hitchhiked a ride, hobo style, on a freight train in the Deep South. Only four of the nine actually knew each other when they climbed aboard. A group of young whites tried to throw them off the freight. A fight ensued, which the blacks won. When the train pulled into Paint Rock, Ala., a white posse was waiting to take them to the jail in the nearby town of Scottsboro.

Authorities discovered that there were two young white women inside a boxcar of the train. When they questioned Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, they claimed they had been gang raped by the blacks. It was all the sheriff could do to prevent a mob from lynching the accused right then and there. 

Taken into custody were two 13-year-olds, Eugene Williams and Roy Wright, and seven others ranging in age up to 19. Their names became well known to Americans, both in the North and the South: Haywood Patterson, Clarence Norris, Charlie Weens, Willie Robeson, Olin Montgomery, Ozie Powell and Andy Wright -- older brother of Roy Wright.

An appointed real estate attorney advised them to plead guilty. Although they refused and had a "trial," the Scottsboro 9 quickly were sentenced to be electrocuted in Alabama prison. But the case drew the attention of the International Labor Defense unit of the Communist party, which staged rallies in the North and helped to make the race case an international cause celebre. They recruited a non-Communist Jewish lawyer, Samuel L. Leibowitz, to handle the appeal. Up to then, the defense lawyer had won 77 out of 78 murder cases; the 78th had resulted in a hung jury.

Such an incredibly good attorney was able to get the Supreme Court to order a new trial on procedural matters, but Leibowitz had a blind spot. He failed to realize that as a Jew from New York, representing black defendants supported by the Communist party, he was, in the eyes of the all-white Southern jury, the ultimate outsider. When he attacked the veracity of Victoria Price's account of the rape--even turning Ruby Bates into a witness for the defense--jury members dug in. Why was this "Jew lawyer" attacking Southern womanhood?

Leibowitz also evoked compelling testimony from Dr. R.R. Bridges, a prosecution witness who had physically examined Price and Bates. Under questioning Bridges stated his opinion that both young women had consensual intercourse hours before they had boarded the train. There was no evidence that they had been subjected to violence of any sort. Leibowitz even located Lester Price, a white drifter who testified that he had sexual relations with Bates by a campfire the night before the alleged attack, and had seen Price having sex with another fellow.

Nevertheless, Price stubbornly stuck by her story and Alabama Atty Gen. Thomas Knight, in his summary, told the jury they should show the world that "Alabama justice can't be bought with Jew-money from New York." The jurors again sentencing the nine defendants to death. However, Judge James Horton had listened to the evidence carefully. Responding to a written motion from Leibowitz, Horton on June 22, 1933 declared a mistrial, saying memorably: "Deliberate injustice is more fatal to the one who imposes it then the one on whom it is imposed." He was subsequently defeated for reelection.

The third trial, before another judge who was openly sympathetic to the state's case, also resulted in convictions of all nine defendants. At this point Leibowitz appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that no blacks in Alabama were included in jury pools--thus denying defendants a jury by their peers. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered a fourth trial.

Leibowitz eventually realized that no matter how good a lawyer he was, and how much the evidence was on his side, his presence was actually hurting rather than helping his clients because it compounded the prejudices of the white southerners on the jury. 

Ultimately, he agreed to step aside and permit a white southern lawyer to lead the defense. In return, the state agreed to drop charges against four of the defendants. Other defendants, save one who escaped from prison, were gradually granted parole from prison. It was not a perfect vindication; rather than ending with a climactic acknowledgment by the Alabama of the errors of its way, the case just petered out. 

The wealth of detail, clear writing by Barak Goodman, and compelling narration by Andre Braugher make this documentary an engrossing learning experience. Director Daniel Anker will join the Jewish Film Festival crowd at the 8 p.m. screening Feb. 20 in the AMC Theaters of La Jolla.