Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2023/Fall/Section33/Bill Stafford

Overview

S.A. Lamm (pseudonym of Bill Stafford) was interviewed in Wilson, NC on July 1, 1939 regarding his life

Biography

S.A. Lamm (Bill Stafford) was born on the 17th of November, 1982. He grew up on a farm in rural North Carolina. As the eldest of his seven other siblings, Lamm found himself with most of the responsibility of tending to the farm and helping out with chores. Only ever completing a couple grades, Lamm was mostly uneducated, never attending any higher level educational institution. His father was his main source of inspiration in life, with Lamm opting to open a business to follow in his father’s footsteps. First opening a coffee and pool room, he later sold the business in 1913 and opened a grocery store instead, just like his father had.

Now an adult, Lamm married a woman named Sally that same year, bearing four children with her. It was around this time that Lamm experienced his first money problems, mainly a result of the expenses of having a family and slow business. Due to this, Lamm turned to gambling as a source of income, with many nights running as late as 5 A.M. It was after one of these late night excursions that Lamm would unfortunately be spotted traveling home late at night, the same night that Ransom Clingman was murdered, the serviceman for Lamm’s slot machines he owned in his grocery store. As the obvious first suspect, Lamm was arrested and questioned immediately. The desire of the sheriff’s department to break up Lamm’s gambling group may have contributed to an unjust trial, according to Lamm. Due to coercion of a false testimony from Lamm’s apprentice, he was eventually sentenced to serve 20 years in federal prison. It was during his sentence that Lamm escaped three times, but was recaptured three times. Eventually being paroled in 1937, Lamm finally settled back down in Wilson and remarried after serving a quarter of his life for a crime he did not commit.

Social Contexts

Education of Children in the Rural South Circa 1900s

Boy working a plough on a farm

Educational reform has only drastically taken effect in the last century, with schoolhouse attendance being only roughly 50% at the beginning of the 20th century. Oftentimes, children, as soon as they were capable of performing chores, were compelled to rise as early as 4:00 in the morning and work for as long as 12 to 15 hours for the whole day. Due to these reasons, there was not enough time or energy in the day in order to attend schooling. Even those who did attend school often took leave of absence during autumn and spring seasons. More often than not, children did not receive an education past basic literacy or arithmetic as “In 1900, about 11 percent of 14-to-17-year-olds attended high school.”. Compared to the 21st century, there was no large emphasis on attaining a schooling past basic literacy as it was not necessary for performing farm chores. There were no truancy laws and even for those who attended, the quality of education was not very high either as memorization instead of understanding of the material was expected.

Judicial Corruption and Misconduct in the 1900s

Before the advent of DNA evidence and modern CCTV cameras, many court proceedings had to rely on witness testimonies, confessions, and circumstantial evidence. The objective was not to prove the guiltiness of the defendant, but rather just persuade the jury. Due to this, false confessions and witness misidentification still remain some of the largest reasons false convictions happen. In addition to these official mishandlings, as high of a figure as “Seventy percent of the murder prosecutions that led to exoneration included official misconduct that we know about.”. Misconduct also applies to the judge and jury themselves unconscious biases like racism can be a weighty factor during court proceedings too. The agenda of the sheriff’s department and judge can also affect judicial proceedings since judges may push to convict more people in order to ensure reelection. The type of crime the defendant is being accused of can also cloud decision making in the courtroom as well, with more violent crimes being sentenced more harshly. The myriad of subconscious human biases as well as corrupt techniques and motives employed by officers of judicial proceedings contribute greatly to why wrongful convictions happen. These short sightings were more prevalent in the 1900s as racial biases were stronger and more reliance on these officers were necessary without any definitive evidence technologies yet.

References

Danko, Meredith. “21 Ways School Was Different a Century Ago.” Mental Floss, Mental Floss, 3 Aug. 2021, www.mentalfloss.com/article/638787/how-school-was-different-100-years-ago.

Kennedy, Joseph. “Rural Life and the Rural School.” Education Resources Information Center, US Government, 1915, files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED392561.pdf.

“Know Causes of Wrongful Convictions.” Edelman & Edelman, P.C. Accessed October 10, 2023. https://www.edelmanpclaw.com/wrongful-conviction/5-known-causes-of-wrongful-convictions/.

Lamm, S.A. “Folder 330: Combs and Massengill (interviewers): A Citizen of Misfortune.” Federal Writers Project Papers. Accessed October 05, 2023. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/03709/id/741.

Livingston, Cullen. The Cruel Case of Wrongful Convictions: Conveying a Racial and Criminal Crisis in Our Courts, Bemijdi State University, Apr. 2023, www.bemidjistate.edu/academics/departments/political-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2023/06/Cullen-Livingston-The-Cruel-Case-of-Wrongful-Convctions-Final-Draft-POL-4500.pdf.

Gross, Samuel R., et al. “Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022.” SSRN, 25 Oct. 2022, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4245863.