Reston, James, Jr., 1941-

On 27 August 1974, the half naked body of Clarence Alligood was found in the Beaufort County Jail in Washington, North Carolina. The white jailer had been stabbed to death with an ice-pick, and his twenty-one year old black female prisoner, Joan Little, was gone. Little surrendered to North Carolina authorities over a week later insisting that she had acted in self-defense against a sexual assault. She was charged with first degree murder, which carried an automatic death sentence if convicted under contemporary North Carolina law.

The Joan Little murder trial captured national attention and made the defendant a symbol for feminists, civil rights activists, and opponents of capital punishment. Using highly sophisticated fundraising techniques, the Joan Little Defense Committee raised over $350,000 nationally and around the world for her defense. On 14 August 1975, she was acquitted.

James Reston was a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who collected information during the trial for a book exploring the case. For further information see James Reston, The Innocence of Joan Little: A Southern Mystery (New York Times Books, 1977).