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Chapter 3 The Trial of Judge Roth, April to September, 1971 The Opening Bell At the start of the trial, Judge Roth took one last swipe at the NAACP counsel when defense attorneys complained about the swift pace of preparation for hearing such a complex case: "Mr. Lucas has kept me and everybody busy going to Cincinnati [the site of the Sixth Circuit]. I've been concerned with that. . . . But the Court of Appeals has issued an order. I abide by it as any little soldier does. " But all the pretrial skirmishing had been worth the effort: Judge Roth took notice of plaintiffs' claims. For forty-one trial days, from April 6 through July 22, he listened to the evidence and evaluated the legal arguments. In his own way Judge Roth had come to respect Nate Jones, Lou Lucas, and their band of lawyers and researchers. As an accommodation to counsel, Roth allowed us to use his jury room to house and work on our growing number of exhibits. He was impressed with the extent of the work product and the length of our workday. He also enjoyed many aspects of plaintiff counsel 's unexpected adversary surprises. For example, when assistant attorney general Krasicky argued that the state board was just an advisory body with no power over the Detroit school district, Lucas responded by reading a brief filed by Krasicky in state court claiming that the state board was the omnipotent parent that could not even be sued by its dissatisfied child, the Detroit board. Krasicky complained that it was unfair for Lucas to dredge up the attorney general's arguments from another case and then argued ruefully that the state board's conflicting arguments could not be wrong in both courts. Judge Roth retorted, "It's a cruel world, Mr. Krasicky." Perhaps chastened by the Sixth Circuit's direction to hold a full hearing, Stephen Roth had made up his mind to judge all the relevant testimony. As the courtroom opened on April 6, 1971, a ten-by-twenty-foot map of the city prepared by Bill Lamson dominated the wall behind defense counsel. This exhibit displayed, in vivid color, the almost complete residential segregation of Detroit: there was not much territory that was other than virtually all-black or all-white. Overlays showed high school boundaries that neatly coincided with the underlying racial divides. As one opposing counsel remarked after the trial, "Who could look at the map for four months and not realize that Detroit was segregated?" We placed the map to Judge Roth's right where he often stared when 41 42 Beyond Busing contemplating an issue or looking away from a witness, rather than placing it above the jury box in Roth's line of sight to the witness stand: we wanted to focus the judge's gaze on the map when he was thinking abstractly, not to divert his attention when he was concentrating on the testimony of a witness. George Bushnell also complained that plaintiffs placed this map behind defense counsel for purposes of intimidation. Although the map hung over their heads, Lamson graciously assured that his handiwork was stable and would not fall down on anyone. Lou Lucas introduced the first witness, Roy Stevens, a white school board member from 1959 through 1966, to provide an overview of the school portion of our case. While on the board, Stevens lived in the far northwest comer of Detroit, but his son traveled daily on the public transportation system to the technical school, Cass High, in the center city. From 1961 through 1963 the board appointed a Citizens' Advisory Committee on Equal Educational Opportunities. Stevens recounted the conclusion of the committee 's report concerning boundary manipulation: "The allegation that purposeful administrative devices have at times been used to perpetuate segregation in some schools is clearly substantiated." Stevens also testified about "optional attendance zones" that existed "only in certain areas ... between [pairs of] black . . . and white schools . . . [I]n many instances students who were white would select the predominantly white school and students who were black would . . . go to a school that was predominantly black. " Stevens concluded by describing how the board then adopted a system of "open enrollment" which allowed any student in the system to transfer to designated schools. At the time, these "open schools" were generally white; many white children from predominantly black schools "utilized this option" to transfer to white schools. With this mild opening, Lucas demonstrated that the Detroit...

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