![]() But as the Knapps continued to research the case and uncover additional evidence, they became increasingly convinced that the Giles brothers and Joseph Johnson were actually innocent. The Knapps and other Giles-Johnson Defense Committee members originally believed that the three men were guilty and sought only to reduce their sentences. They interviewed these witnesses and were able to persuade some of them to sign affidavits about the character of the defendants and their accuser. Harold and Barbara Knapp also identified individuals who were familiar with the original incident or with the people involved. They reviewed police and court records and noted some inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case. Harold and Barbara Knapp became involved with the group during the following year and primarily undertook research and publicity activities on behalf of the committee. Howard) Ross, who employed the Giles brothers’ mother as a housekeeper. The Giles-Johnson Defense Committee was established in July 1962 by Frances (Mrs. Despite this change, Johnson was sentenced to death by Judge Matthew S. After the Giles brothers received the death penalty, attorneys for Joseph Johnson requested to change the venue for Johnson’s trial to Anne Arundel County. The Giles brothers were tried for rape in Montgomery County and were sentenced to death on Decemby Judge James H. Joseph Johnson with sheriff during his 1962 trial. Together with the other members of the Giles-Johnson Defense Committee, they showed that a small group of motivated citizens can successfully change the outcome of a complex case. The Knapps did not have legal backgrounds themselves, but they invested a lot of time and effort to figure out what happened in the Giles-Johnson case and to share their findings with people in positions of power. Creating the finding aid helped me to appreciate the amount of work that was involved in the Knapps’ investigations. ![]() There were a lot of different trials and appeals that I had to keep track of in order to write an accurate finding aid. It was also hard to describe some of the briefs and other legal documents in the collection. In some cases, it was necessary to retitle the folders to provide a more complete description of the materials they contained. Some of the folders also contained unexpected combinations of documents. Originally, I had arranged the collection into six series, but this turned out to be too complicated. Processing this collection was challenging because the original file structure needed to be adapted to better aid access to noteworthy groups of materials. The finding aid for the Knapp papers will eventually be available online. I then creating a finding aid for the collection with a Historical Note, Scope and Contents Note, and series descriptions. After establishing physical control over the collection, I arranged the materials into four series: working files, Giles-Johnson legal documents, related cases, and audio recordings. ![]() I rehoused the materials in acid-free folders, removed metal fasteners, and separated newspaper clippings from other papers with acid-free paper. The collection includes correspondence, reports, notes, legal documents, clippings, a scrapbook, and audio recordings related to the Knapps’ involvement with the Giles-Johnson case. John Giles (left) and James Giles (right) at the Maryland Penitentiary in December 1963. The collection also provides important documentation on civil rights, citizen action, and community activism. The Knapp papers collection is useful for researchers studying race relations in Maryland, sexual assault cases, and capital punishment. The Knapp papers were donated by Barbara Knapp in May 2018, and complement an existing collection at UMD, the Giles-Johnson Defense Committee records. This volunteer group of about sixty Montgomery County citizens worked for the defense of James and John Giles and Joseph Johnson, three African-American men accused of raping a white, teenaged girl in 1961. Knapp papers document a white couple’s involvement with the Giles-Johnson Defense Committee. This archival collection sheds light on an example of this difficult history and demonstrates that everyday citizens can play a role in challenging racially-motivated law enforcement and legal decisions. This semester, while working as a student assistant for Special Collections, I processed the Harold A. Racial injustice in the state of Maryland has a long, painful history.
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