Trenton Six

The Trenton Six was the group name of six African-American men arrested for murdering an elderly white shopkeeper in January 1948 in Trenton, New Jersey. In August of that year, an all-white jury convicted the six men of murder and sentenced them to death.

The case became a civil rights cause célèbre due to alleged injustices committed after the men's arrests as well as questions about the fairness of their trial. The NAACP and Civil Rights Congress dispatched legal teams to appeal the convictions to the New Jersey Supreme Court. The court found fault with the trial judge's jury instructions and remanded the case for retrial. The second trial in early 1951 ended in a mistrial. In the third trial, which concluded in June 1951, four of the defendants were acquitted. The other two, Collis English and Ralph Cooper, were again convicted of murder, but this time the jury recommended mercy – life in prison rather than execution.

Civil rights groups once more appealed to the state Supreme Court, which again found fault with the proceedings and ordered a retrial. Before that could occur, English died in prison in December 1952. Cooper then changed his plea from "not guilty" to "no defense" and implicated the other five men in the crime. He was given 6-10 years, and paroled in 1954 because of time served.

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