“Questionable Justice”: The Case of the Blue Hood in Pittsburgh’s South Hills

In the spring of 1942, Pittsburgh’s South Hills communities were plagued by a series of frightening attacks made by a masked figure wearing a blue fabric hood. After an intense manhunt, the suspect turned out to be John Simon, an eighteen-year-old man with an intellectual disability and a terrible homelife. Despite a lack of legal representation and questions about his ability to defend himself, Simon was convicted and sentenced to twenty to forty years in Western State Penitentiary. Over time, his case aligned with new questions about the criminal justice system and the rights of the accused. It attracted the attention of journalist John Bartlow Martin, who included Simon’s story in an article for the Saturday Evening Post. Working with Pittsburgh ACLU counsel Martin Lubow, the men oversaw a process that created a different outcome for John Simon and changed the way that defendants were processed in the Allegheny County Criminal Court.