Under the ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson, the law did not regard segregation as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment as long as accommodations were “equal.” However, while that mainly applied to public accommodations, this law combined with restrictive laws known as Black Codes placed African Americans as innocent victims guilty of crimes they did not commit in a “separate but equal” justice system. This was evident in the incident regarding the Scottsboro Boys. Nine African American teenagers, known as the “Scottsboro Boys,” ages twelve to nineteen, were accused in Alabama of raping two white women in 1931. The accusation came after the boys were attacked on a train by a group of white teens. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial.