Jackson Advocate

Trenton Six
Denied Bail

New York, July 29 - A motion of Civil Rights Congress attorneys to admit the Trenton Six to bail was denied today by Judge Charles P. Hutchinson, the same judge who presided at their "lynching, northern style" trial last year.

"Judge Hutchinson's refusal to grant the six innocent men bail can only be described as the compounding of a vicious jim crow frameup," declared William L. Patterson, Civil Rights Congress Executive Secretary.

Following the refusal of bail, defense attorneys O. John Rogge, Solomon Golat, and Mr. Patterson demanded that the judge order the Trenton police department to produce the fingerprint evidence that had been suppressed during the trial. Trenton Police Lt. E. K. Sharpe was summoned to account for the fingerprint findings of his department.

He startled the Court by claiming that he had found no fingerprints on the murder weapon, and by then admitting that there had been partial prints which he himself had wiped off.

At the original trial, Prosecutor Volpe fought bitterly against a defense motion to have the fingerprint reports admitted. Judge Hutchinson sustained him in a ruling which was later characterized by the New Jersey Supreme Court as "suppression of evidence".

Mr. Patterson declared "the refusal of bail and the startling revelation about the fingerprints once again illustrate the brazenness of the frameup by Jersey officials, of the Trenton Six. The real criminals in this case are not the six innocent Negroes, but the officials who carried out the vicious frameup. This crime - that of depriving six Negro men of their constitutional and human rights, both during and after framing them on a murder charge - lies at the door of every New Jersey official who aided in the prosecution of the case, particularly the prosecutor and the judge."