Case ID: h-mch_4/html/0063-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

GENERAL COURT,
    OCTOBER TERM, 1797.
    Mahoney vs. Ashton.
    Petition for freedom. The petition states the petitioner to be descended from a free woman named Ann Joice. The defendant pleaded, “ that the said Charles is the proper slave of him the said John, without this, that the said Charles is a freeman, and of free condition; and this he is ready to verify; wherefore he prays judgment, if the said Charles his action aforesaid to have or maintain ought, See,” to which thepetitionerreplied, «that lje, by any thing by the said John in his plea above pleaded, from having his action aforesaid against him ought not to be precluded, because he says, that he the said Charles is a free man, and of free condition; and tin's he prays may be inquired of by the country; and the said John in like manner, &c.”
    It was admitted at the trial by the parties, by their counsel, that William Digges’s Sue, a mulatto woman, David, a carpenter, Frank Herbert, Jack Wood, and Tom Cra7ie, all four mulatto men, were the children of Joice, who died at the Wood Yard, and who, together with her children above named, were in the possession of Henry Darnell, of Annc-Arundel county. That the above named Sue was the mother of Warren’s Polly, Hill’s Nelly and Carroll’s Sue. That Carroll’s Sue was the mother of Nelly, who was the mother of Charles and Patrick Mahoney.
    
    1. The petitioner by his counsel, to support the issue on his part, offered to read to the jury the deposition of Henry Davis, which deposition was agreed to be read in evidence, except in the parts objected to. The defendant, by his counsel, objected to the reading of that part of the said Davis’s deposition, to wit, in these words, « and he,” (meaning the said Henry Davis) “ has heard his unde David Davis (who is deceased) say, that it was the report of the neighbourhood that if she (meaning Joice) had justice done her, she ought to have been free; and this he heard sundry times from his unde when talking the matter over;” the same being incompetent and improper to be read to the jury.
    The Court, [Chase J. alone,] overruled the said objection, and determined that the aforesaid part of the said deposition should he read to the jury; which was done accordingly. The defendant excepted.
    2. The Petitioner also, in support of the issue, offered in evidence the deposition of John Wheat; but the court rejected a part of it as not legal evidence, because the same contained the opinions of persons uncoupled with the facts from whence their conclusions were drawn or opinions formed. The Court said, that opinions were not evidence; hut that the facts upon which they were formed were evidence.
    A special verdict was found, and the cause continued— Tide October term 1798.
    
      Johnson and Wilmer for the petitioner.
    
      Martiii (attorney general,) Cooke and Key, for the defendant.