Photos: The Clarence Henderson case

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Clarence Henderson, a Black sharecropper, was convicted in three separate trials for the 1948 murder of Carl “Buddy” Stevens, Jr., in Carrollton. Each time, his conviction was overturned by the Georgia Supreme Court for lack of evidence. Now, his family has successfully gotten those charges formally dropped.

Carrollton sharecropper Clarence Henderson is photographed moments before his first trial on Jan. 30, 1950, while ringed by state and local law enforcement. The one-day trial was a spectacle and held under tight security with armed state troopers ringing the courtroom. Henderson would be convicted three times in separate trials which were all overturned. (File)

The Oct. 31, 1948, edition of The Atlanta Constitution screams with news of the shooting death of Carl "Buddy" Stevens, Jr. Stevens and his girlfriend were abducted by a masked man and taken to a secluded place before Stevens was shot dead and the girlfriend escaped. Investigators searched for months for a suspect, eventually landing on Clarence Henderson. (File)

Investigators claimed that markings from bullets taken from Buddy Stevens' leg matched markings made from the suspected murder weapon. This photo is from a prosecution exhibit used in the murder trials of Clarence Henderson. (File)

Prosecutors claimed Clarence Henderson used this stolen .38 Special revolver to shoot Stevens but testimony putting it in Henderson's hands was inconsistent, and the bullet removed from Stevens was the wrong caliber. The pistol — complete with evidence tag — remains in the evidence room in the Carroll County Courthouse today. (Chris Joyner/chris.joyner@ajc.com)

Clarence Henderson was tried and convicted three times in this courtroom in the historic Carroll County Courthouse on the same murder charge. Each time the verdict was overturned by the Supreme Court of Georgia. (Chris Joyner/chris.joyner@ajc.com)

During Henderson's first trial in 1950, his white, court-appointed attorneys called no witnesses and made rare objections to the state’s case. After that first conviction, the NAACP took an interest in Henderson's case and helped with his appeals. (Chris Joyner/chris.joyner@ajc.com)

In this telegram, the executive secretary of the Atlanta branch of the NAACP apprises special council Thurgood Marshall of events in Clarence Henderson's case. (Chris Joyner/chris.joyner@ajc.com)

Attorney Dan Duke, right, was hired by the NAACP to help with Clarence Henderson's second and third trials. Duke was known as a crusading white attorney with a reputation for taking on the Ku Klux Klan. In this photo, Duke confronts Gov. Eugene Talmadge over the governor's desire to grant clemency to KKK members convicted of a series of assaults. (File)

The 2022 book “The Three Death Sentences of Clarence Henderson,” by Chris Joyner, has led to a reexamination of the Henderson case. Joyner, an investigative reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constituion, used court records, contemporary news accounts and archival records to tell the story of the Stevens murder and Henderson’s struggle to regain his freedom. (Courtesy of Abrams Books)

Decatur resident Brandon Henderson is the great-grandson of Clarence Henderson. Henderson's family asked Coweta County prosecutors to reexamine the case and sucessfully got the charges against Clarence Henderson formally dropped. Clarence Henderson died more than 40 years ago. (Miguel Martinez/miguel.martinezjimenez@ajc.com)

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Carrollton sharecropper Clarence Henderson is photographed moments before his first trial on Jan. 30, 1950, while ringed by state and local law enforcement. The one-day trial was a spectacle and held under tight security with armed state troopers ringing the courtroom. Henderson would be convicted three times in separate trials which were all overturned. (File)

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