Not Guilty: Thirty Six Actual Cases in Which
An Innocent Man Was Convicted (1957)
by Judge Jerome Frank and Barbara Frank

Excerpt on

Southerland and Mathis
 

In 1934 almost daily the press reported an armed bank robbery. The menace of such crimes of violence, or potential violence, assumed terrifying proportions in American minds: citizens had been badly hurt or killed during the commission of these robberies, and no one felt immune. Clearly a drastic remedy was necessary.

Legislation seemed one way. Many states revised their laws to make the punishment more nearly fit the crime. In Texas, for example, where the greatest number of bank robberies had occurred, a statute made the crime punishable by death in the electric chair. It was only when a federal law was passed, however, that the end of the terror drew near. On May 18, President Roosevelt signed the Federal Bank Robbery Statute. This act made the crime a federal offense if it involved a national bank or one of the many banks within the Federal Reserve System, and it authorized the F.B.I. to act in all such cases whether tried under state or under federal law.

Charlie Chaplin, Texas's most notorious bank robber, saw the signing of this statute as the doom of his career. But Chaplin determined to have one last fling despite the risks. He was in hiding out of the state, but on May 18, the day the act was signed, he returned to Texas to lay his final plans. Needing an accomplice, he chose a man named Luther Bone, noted for his skill in such affairs. Bone and Chaplin spent several weeks carefully working out their plans.

In the early afternoon of June 6, in a stolen Studebaker, the two men drove into the business section of Atlanta, a prosper­ing Texas town. Chaplin, wearing a blue business suit, was at the wheel. Seated next to him, Bone was dressed in overalls. On the seat between them lay a large brief case. At 2:35 P.M., Chaplin parked the Studebaker beside some railroad tracks, directly across from Atlanta's First National Bank. He and Bone alighted from the car.

It was a pleasant summer day, the kind to encourage an exchange of news among neighbors perhaps neglected in the colder months. In front of the bank stood two men thus engaged, F. M. Sterrett, a candy salesman, and Paul Dunklin, one of the bank's cashiers. They merely glanced at the apparently ordinary blue-suited man as he entered the bank.

Immediately Bone appeared. Standing in front of Dunklin and Sterrett, he whipped a revolver from the pocket of his overalls and ordered the men into the bank. They went in frightened silence. He followed them.

Besides Chaplin three other men were already in the bank: Verne Clements, the assistant cashier, Wilmer Hughes, the bookkeeper, and R. Hunt, a farmer and depositor. Bone told the five men to go behind the counter and lie quietly on the floor. White-faced and scared, they hastily obeyed.

The bandits worked fast and efficiently. They emptied the contents of the cash drawers into the large brief case. On Bone's demand Clements opened a compartment of the vault. Helplessly Clements then watched Bone and Chaplin remove the valuables it contained and stuff them into the brief case.

The robbers then ordered their victims into the vault, so that none of them could sound the alarm before the getaway. Lock­ing the vault, the bandits fled.

About an hour later the anxious captives, having found some tools inside, managed to free themselves. Immediately they sounded the alarm.

The bank robbers had stolen approximately $12,000 – $5000 in cash – four diamond rings, and some government bonds. The amount of the theft was alone enough to arouse popular indignation; the terror of the bandits' victims also had its contagious effect on the community. There was great pressure on police officials to solve the crime speedily.

Since a bank robbery now came under the jurisdiction of the F.B.I., that agency was notified, although it was decided that the case would be prosecuted in the state court. The police also called in the Burns Detective Agency. The bank, working independently, engaged a man named Burton, once a Texas Ranger, to find the criminals.

From the witnesses to the crime the investigators obtained a full description of the criminals: the man wearing the blue suit, the witnesses said, was stocky, had dark and curly hair, and was the shorter of the two; the man in overalls stood about six feet, had blond hair, prominent cheekbones, and a sallow skin.

Atlanta's citizens, the police, and other investigators were solidly united in their determination that the criminals be caught, and speedily. Only when the robbers were behind prison walls would the community feel safe.

In 1934, I. L. Southerland, a married man of thirty-four, lived in Little Rock, Arkansas. He owned his own printing business, but apparently it did not bring in an income sufficient to support him and his family comfortably. He had decided, in 1934, to look around for some additional business enterprise. He had managed to save a little money over the years and had accumulated just about enough to take advantage of any modest opportunity that might present itself.

Late in May of 1934, Southerland heard of two such opportunities, one in Texarkana, Texas, the other in Shreveport, Louisiana. Each town was within easy traveling distance of his home.

Not until early June, however, was he free to make the trip. On June 5, the day before the Atlanta crime took place, he drove to Texarkana.

Accompanying Southerland were Ovid Mathis and a mutual friend, Opal Garner. Mathis, then twenty-seven years old, was the son of a prominent Methodist minister who had been invalided for some years. Mathis supported his parents from the earnings of a cleaning and dyeing establishment he owned.

Southerland's business in Texarkana took only a short time, for he soon found out that the opportunity he sought was not there. He and his traveling companions retired early in order to be ready for the day ahead, in which they planned to drive to Shreveport.

The three arrived there about noon the following day.
Southerland had an appointment with a man named John
Davis, manager and owner of the DuLuxe Cafe. Davis was
looking for someone to whom to sell a share in the café and,
while he and Southerland discussed the terms, Mathis and Miss
Garner paid a social call. When they returned, it was agreed
that the four of them eat lunch at the café. They finished lunch about 2 P.M., thirty-five minutes before the bank robbery took place in Atlanta, about twenty-five miles away.

At three o'clock on the afternoon of June 6, while the men locked in the Atlanta's bank vault were still trying to escape, Southerland, Mathis, and Miss Garner started their trip back to Little Rock.

Burton, the former Texas Ranger hired by the bank, together with Clements, the bank's assistant cashier, one of the witnesses to the crime, traveled through the Atlanta area in search of the criminals. One of their trips took them to Little Rock. There, on August 13, they chanced to see Southerland on the street. To Clements, Southerland looked like the bank robber who had worn the blue suit. Immediately Clements identified him. Burton took Southerland to state police headquarters.

Since Mathis had accompanied Southerland on his June 6 trip, the police also brought him to headquarters. Clements identified him as the robber wearing overalls. The two men were held for questioning. They denied knowledge of, or participation in, the crime.

But, after negotiations between the Atlanta and Arkansas state police were complete, the suspects were brought to Atlanta, charged with the robbery of the First National Bank.

Southerland and Mathis continued to assert their innocence, pointing to their alibis. But Clements had been very sure, and now the suspects were confronted by the other victims of the crime.

Southerland and Mathis must have felt that their ordeal was near its end when they heard what the salesman, Sterrett, said: "I had to look down into that robber's face. This man Southerland is half a head taller. The second robber was nearly six feet tall and he had light hair and a sallow complexion. Mathis has light hair, all right, but he's only five feet seven. And he doesn't have the prominent cheekbones, either. I tell you, you've got the wrong men."

Dunklin, one of the cashiers, did not identify the two men. But Hughes, the bookkeeper, agreed with Clements that Southerland and Mathis were the bank robbers. The farmer, Hunt, was also sure.

Although the suspects had an alibi that three witnesses supported and although they did not fit the physical description of the robbers given directly after the crime occurred, yet three eyewitnesses said that they were the bank bandits. That evidence sufficed to enable the prosecutor to get an indictment and go to trial. That the observation of the state's witnesses had probably been much distorted by their natural fright while the robbery was taking place is not the sort of fact that many prosecutors weigh, since they can reason that the credibility of the witnesses is for the jury to decide. Indeed, the prosecutor no doubt believed that Southerland and Mathis were the guilty men.


The accused pair were indicted and tried separately. The trial of Southerland came first.

The prosecution put Clements, Hughes, and Hunt on the witness stand. Convinced that they were correct, their testimony proved unshakable: they swore that Southerland was one of the criminals.

Southerland's testimony opened the defense. He swore that
he had been nowhere near the scene of the crime when it occurred. Then Davis, the café owner, testified that Southerland had been with him in Shreveport when the crime was taking place. Next Opal Garner testified that she had accompanied the defendant on his trip of June 5 and 6, and that he had not been in Atlanta on those dates. A Mrs. Perry swore that Mathis and Miss Garner had visited her on the afternoon of June 6, evidence that corroborated Opal Garner's testimony. Sterrett testified that he had witnessed the robbery, and that Southerland did not participate.

The jury, believing the defense witnesses were mistaken, or had lied, convicted Southerland.

Mathis's trial followed the same course. The prosecution produced the identifying witnesses, and Mathis presented his alibi, supported by the same witnesses who had testified for Southerland. The jury brought in a guilty verdict.

Each prisoner was sentenced to the state penitentiary, Mathis for thirty, Southerland for fifty years.


There was still the chance that the judgment would be reversed in the Supreme Court of the state. But the prisoners now found themselves without the necessary funds for an appeal, since their savings had been exhausted by the cost of their defense. However, a Texas lawyer, convinced that they were innocent, represented them on their appeals without a fee.

Whatever the hopes of the convicted two, they were short-lived. The Texas Supreme Court reviewed the case, concluded that the trials had been conducted properly, and, in an opinion handed down on April 25, 1935, sustained the judgment of the trial court. Early in May, because the jury had believed the wrong witnesses, Southerland and Mathis began their prison terms.

After their numbers and their cells had been assigned, the prisoners were put to work, Mathis on the prison farm, Southerland, because of his civilian skills, in the penitentiary print shop.

Captain Barnett, the shop superintendent, and Southerland worked together closely, and soon a friendship developed between the two. Southerland told the superintendent the story of his trial, assuring Barnett that he and Mathis were innocent. Although Barnett must have heard many such assertions from many other prisoners, he believed this one. Convinced by the
trial testimony of the defense witnesses, Barnett determined to do everything in his power to help Southerland and Mathis prove their innocence.

Barnett wrote to each of the defense witnesses, asking for affidavits about the prisoners' alibis. The witnesses responded eagerly, each repeating in his affidavit what he had testified in
court.

About that time Luther Bone, Chaplin's accomplice in the Atlanta robbery, was convicted of another crime and sentenced to the state penitentiary. Barnett suspected that Bone had been one of the bandits in the bank robbery, for he fitted the physical description of the robber and his criminal record fitted the pattern of the crime.

Barnett took up the matter with the F.B.I. He found that several of the government agents agreed with him that the convicted pair were innocent and that Bone was guilty. More, these agents believed that the notorious Chaplin was the master
mind, as the robbery had been conducted in his inimitable style.

Here Chaplin himself took a hand in clearing the prisoners. Outraged, he later said, by their conviction, and in need of cash, he decided to re-enact the crime of 1934 so that the police would get the point.

On August 31, 1936, nearly one and a half years after Southerland and Mathis began their prison terms, Chaplin, aided by two accomplices, once more robbed Atlanta's First National Bank. As before, during the robbery, they compelled those in the bank to lie helpless on the floor. As before, the robbery complete, the bandits locked their victims in the vault.

However, this time Chaplin did not escape. One of the victims, unnoticed by the robbers, had managed to flash an alarm. When Chaplin walked into the street, the police lay in wait for him. A short gun fight ensued, during which Chaplin received a bullet wound. The police captured him and one of his accom­plices. The third robber escaped.

When F.B.I. agents arrived at the county jail where Chaplin was being held, he confessed to the first and second robberies of the Atlanta bank, insisting that Southerland and Mathis were innocent.

The F.B.I. agents sent for the five witnesses to the first crime. Sterrett immediately recognized Chaplin as one of the men in the 1934 Atlanta robbery. Dunklin, who had not identified either of the innocent men, did not recognize Chaplin, as he said that he had never seen the bandits at close range. Hunt, the farmer, said that Chaplin had been one of the bandits in the bank.

Clements and Hughes, however, did not recognize Chaplin as one of the bank robbers. These witnesses still thought Southerland and Mathis the guilty men. For that reason the state did not release the prisoners.


Chaplin went to trial for the second Atlanta bank robbery, was convicted, and sentenced to the state penitentiary. In prison he freely discussed the details of the first robbery, expressing his indignation that Southerland and Mathis had not been released.
"That's the main reason I went into the bank again," he said. "I tried to do everything in the second robbery just like I did
the first time, so those bankers would surely recognize me and free those other boys."

Because the state officials did not intend to free the "other boys," Barnett prevailed upon Luther Bone to confess to his participation in the first robbery. In a written statement Bone detailed the facts of that crime. On the basis of Chaplin's and Bone's confessions, the federal grand jury indicted the two men for the 1934 robbery of the Atlanta bank.

The state, however, disregarding the belief of F.B.I. agents and the federal prosecutor that Bone and Chaplin, not the other prisoners, had held up the bank in 1934, continued to protest the release of Southerland and Mathis. The prisoners, taking matters in their own hands, sent a record of the evidence, compiled by Barnett and the F.B.I., to the Texas Board of Pardons, requesting a review of their case.

The three members of the Board decided to do nothing about the matter until they knew the outcome of Chaplin's and Bone's trial. But that trial was never held: Chaplin escaped from the penitentiary. The Board still did not act on the petition from the prisoners.

Soon, however, the Board received insistent demands to
proceed. A special F.B.I. agent wrote a digest of the case, asking that the prisoners be pardoned. An attorney for a nationally known magazine, True Detective (which had devoted several issues to the prisoners' cause), visited the Board on behaIf of Southerland and Mathis. The state requested a Board hearing.

The Board granted the state's request. At the hearing both sides presented evidence. The state, arguing that the prisoners' innocence had not been proved, presented the two witnesses who still identified Southerland and Mathis. The prisoners offered the confessions of Chaplin and Bone, and the two witnesses who had identified Chaplin as one of the bank robbers.

Two of the Board members, after carefully considering the evidence, and persuaded that Southerland and Mathis were innocent, voted for their unconditional pardon. The third member, after carefully considering the same evidence, and certain that the prisoners were the guilty men, dissented.

Texas's Governor Allred bridged the gap created by the split decision of the Board. On November 7, 1938, four years after the prisoners began to serve their terms, he conditionally pardoned them: They were released, but on parole. That meant that they were required to report regularly to the Parole Board, still had no civil liberties, and must live with a prison stigma on their names. Only in the next election year, when a new governor took office, did Texas fully acknowledge its mistake. As one of Governor O'Daniel's first official acts, he granted Southerland and Mathis unconditional pardons. But no human act could restore their four lost prison years, nor add those years to the remainder of their lives.

SOURCES

1. Statement of facts, brief on appeal, Fred Harris, attorney.

2. 128 Texas Cr. 384 (1935).

3. Barnett, S. E., "Southerland and Mathis Are Innocent," True Detective magazine, July, August, 1938, Vol. 30, Nos. 4, 5.