31 Facts About Joan Little

Joan Little's case became a cause celebre of the civil rights, feminist, and anti-death penalty movements.

Joan Little's case has become classic in legal circles as a pioneering instance of the application of scientific jury selection.

Joan Little was born and raised until age 15 in Washington, a town of under 10,000 in North Carolina's rural Atlantic coastal region.

Joan Little's mother, Jessie Williams was a "religious fanatic" who frequently consulted "root workers," or hoodoo folk healers.

Joan Little's father was a security guard in Brooklyn, New York.

Joan Little took to running away and hiding and soon fell in with an older crowd who supported her rebellion.

Joan Little's mother realized she had not been duly released and so sought to legitimize her daughter's situation by procuring an official release.

Joan Little later sent Joan to live with relatives in Philadelphia.

Three weeks after graduating from high school there, Joan Little developed a thyroid problem and returned to North Carolina for an operation.

Joan Little returned to Washington in time for the trial, accompanied by Julius Rogers and two minors.

Since Joan Little had fled from prison she was known as a fugitive and the police were therefore authorized to kill her on sight, so Joan Little turned herself in at Raleigh.

Joan Little was put on trial for murder and was facing the North Carolina gas chamber.

Joan Little had found refuge in the home of an older black man from her community and had received offers to seek refuge in other countries.

Joan Little was charged with first-degree murder, which carried an automatic death sentence.

At trial, the prosecution contended that Joan Little was a lewd woman who seduced Alligood only to murder him to enable her escape.

Joan Little testified she was able to seize the ice pick while he was seated on her bunk because he had let his guard down in the moments after his orgasm.

Joan Little stabbed him repeatedly, and she testified he resisted fiercely and wrestled her, but that given his wounded state, she had been able to get free of him.

William Griffin was the prosecutor who had concluded that Joan Little had lured the 62-year-old jailer so she could escape.

Jerry Paul had Joan Little walk around in front of the media with the book To Kill a Mockingbird in order to encourage comparisons between her and Tom Robinson, the imprisoned black man of the novel.

The Free Joan Little campaigns were successful enough that Joan Little's counsel were able to get the first-degree murder charge reduced to second degree.

Joan Little was returned to prison to serve the remainder of her sentence for breaking and entering.

Joan Little was caught and then convicted and sentenced for the escape.

Joan Little was freed in June 1979 and moved to New York City.

Joan Little's trial attracted the attention of many political activists, including Angela Davis; Rosa Parks, who formed a local chapter for Little's defense; and Karen Galloway, a former Duke University Law student who worked closely with Joan Little on her case.

Joan Little and came to know her better than anyone else during the trial.

Joan Little authored a poem entitled "I Am Somebody", which was incorporated into a mural in San Diego's Chicano Park by the female muralists of Sacramento's Royal Chicano Air Force.

In 1989, Joan Little was arrested in New Jersey on charges including driving a stolen car.

Joan Little telephoned William Kunstler, who had assisted her in the past, for help.

Joan Little had returned to New York a free woman, but now the 34-year-old woman, accompanied by a male, was pulled over for driving a car with missing front license plate and stolen back license plate, as well as additional charges.

Joan Little remained the night at the Hudson County jail.

Since the 1989 arrest, Joan Little has disappeared from public view.