sentences:  Alerted to the case and its growing controversy, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) campaigned against the verdicts, arguing that the sentences violated the equal-protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution (no white man had ever been sentenced to death in Virginia for rape).But Judge Whittle ruled that because of the brutality of the crime and the findings of guilt that the men's sentences were appropriate.The seven were ultimately executed in 1951.