1930s NC was a bad place for Black folks. His defense was that she seduced him. And, because it was the 1930s South, the white jury was ready to believe that nine year old baby was already hyper-sexualized by virtue of being a Black female who was already menstruating; she didn't get to be seen as "just a kid" by the courts. (I began menstruating in the third grade, just for reference; and you cannot get whiter than me – I'm practically transluscent.) Gran said he got a year mostly because he just ran and left her when he tore her open forcing himself on her and she started hemorraging. If she hadn't dragged herself to where her mother was washing some white woman's clothes, she'd have bled out alone – she nearly died then, and then again when her mother got her a back alley abortion. And yes, Gran being pregnant helped him too. It was a heartlessly cruel time and place for Black people.