Taylor v. State

Here considered are two appeals in one record, one by James Clarence Raymond Washington, a negro boy sixteen years of age at the time of the trial, and the other by Willie Gray Taylor, a negro boy fifteen years of age at the time of the trial, from verdicts of guilty and sentence of death on conviction of rape of a young white woman, hereinafter known as the prosecuting witness.

The case was tried before two judges sitting as a jury.

The evidence shows that on the night of March 16, 1946, these two appellants with two other negro youths, Charles and Walter Ross, were playing “craps” behind a…