Case ID: del-cas_2/html/0137-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Chief Justice Booth.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

STATE v. NEGRO GEORGE, the Slave of Susan Heavelow.
    Court of Quarter Sessions. Sussex.
    November 21, 1800.
    
      Rodney’s Notes.
    
    
      
      Ridgély, Attorney General [for State]. Vining [for defendant].
    
      Mr. Vining assigned [as] counsel for the prisoner by the Court.
    Sessions at Georgetown before Chief Justice Booth, and Rodney and Bassett, Associates.
    Indictment read.
    Sarah Jones. I went to the cow-pen to milk my cows in the morning. First I saw of him was his shadow. He seized me by my two arms. I said, “Lord have mercy on me what shall I do?” He threw me down, choked me and smothered me, and proceeded to commit a rape.
    Attorney General. Did you perceive or were you sensible by any marks that he spent or emitted while with you?
    [Sarah Jones.] I did. When he left me, I then see him looking at me a small distance off. He said to me “You wont tell?” I was frightened, and said I would not have such ridiculous doings known for one hundred pounds. He said, “It will not be known unless you tell.” I never spoke to him since. He then left me. I got home as well as I could. It happened about the last of August on Friday. The pen was about one-half a mile from the house. I could not be seen from the house. My husband was at work in his shop in the yard. Comfort Messick was the girl that lived with me. I sent my daughter to my husband, and told him George run off.
    (On cross-examination.) Did George ever misbehave or use violence before?
    [Sarah Jones.] No, not to me. It was nine or ten o’clock when he first came.
    John Jones. My daughter came to me and told me “Mammy told me to tell you you must go in.” My wife then told me of what happened. I took down my gun to shoot the Negro, but he was gone. This was Friday, the 22nd August. Next I see of him was at Milford, next Sunday morning, tied to R. Hoskin’s porch, ironed. Myself and brother-in-law brought him down to jail. When I came in with my gun my wife’s nose and mouth were bleeding, face purple, skin raked off her face and knee and several bruises. George lived [with us] five months, lacking two days, before this. (On cross-examination.) The place was one-half mile from house. My wife milked there all summer.
    William Dickerson. I first saw this Negro Sunday, after he was taken. [I] went with them to jail. He confessed nothing that day. . . . Mrs. Jones had gone out to milk, he went to her, took hold of her, she fell and he left her, he said.
    
      Attorney General. All the facts laid are fully proved by the witnesses for the State. The character of the woman, the flight of the Negro, his confessions to William Dickerson, are all circumstances against the prisoner.
    
      Mr. Vining for prisoner.
    Notwithstanding all the circumstances against the prisoner, there has no law yet been read to you. I will read some to you. 4 Bl.Comm. 214, rape ought to be punished etc.
    Attorney General in conclusion.
   Chief Justice Booth.

On an indictment for this offense it is necessary the facts of penetration and emission be proved. The witnesses for the State (and there are none for the prisoner) have proved these facts. If you credit them, you will find him guilty, and in that case it will be proper for you to assess the value of the Negro, two-thirds of which by law is to be paid by the county to the owner.

Jury came down and found the prisoner guilty. Were not up above ten or fifteen minutes.

After some time the prisoner’s counsel was asked by the Court if he had anything to say why judgment should not pass upon the prisoner. He answered he had nothing to move in arrest of judgment.

The prisoner, also being asked, made no answer, and the Chief Justice of the Court proceeded to pass sentence agreeably to law, viz that he be taken to the jail from whence he came, and from thence to the place of execution, and be hanged until dead etc.

The said George was executed at Georgetown, agreeably to the sentence of the Court, in December, 1800.