Case ID: va_21/html/0863-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Griffith v. Fanny.
    
    December, 1820.
    Right to Freedom — Law Governing — Case at Bar. — A negro held In servitude in Ohio, under a deed executed in Virginia to a citizen of Virginia, is entitled to freedom by the Constitution of Ohio.
    Fanny sued Griffith, in forma pau-peris, for her freedom, in the Superior court of law for Wood county. The defendant pleaded “not guilty,” and specially, that Fanny was his slave.
    At the trial, the Jury found by a special verdict, that Fanny was the slave of one Kincheloe, until a short time before the 23d August 1816. Sometimes in that month, he sold her to William Skinner, a citizen, resident in the *state of Ohio. In conformity with the sale, Kincheloe delivered possession to Skinner at Marietta in Ohio, and received the purchase money. Griffith was present at this sale; and on the 23d August 1816, Kincheloe executed a bill of sale for Fanny, to Griffith, which bill was delivered to Skinner. This bill was an absolute sale of Fanny from Kinche-loe to Griffith, who was at the time, and continued to be, a citizen of Virginia. The agreement to have a bill of sale executed to Griffith, was between him and Skinner, for Kincheloe was no party to their contract, though he executed the deed. At the time of its execution, Skinner stated to Kinche-loe, that he wished the bill of sale to be to Griffith, because by the laws of Ohio, he could not hold a slave in his own right. Fanny was at different times seen at Skinner’s residence in Ohio. She was last seen there, in the spring of 1818. About the 1st October 1818, she returned to Virginia, where she was taken into the possession of Griffith, who claimed her under the bill of sale. The section of the Constitution of Ohio, prohibiting involuntary servitude was inserted into the verdict. And upon these facts, the law of the case was submitted to the court: which gave judgment for the pauper, and Griffith appealed.
    Hay for the appellant, insisted, that the Constitution and law of Ohio, were not set forth with sufficient certainty to warrant the judgment; and that there should be a venire de novo. That it did not appear Fanny made any thing more, than a so-journment in Ohio, which did not entitle her to freedom; the Constitution of the U. States prevented that effect. In a special verdict nothing can be supplied by intendment.
    Forbes contra. The whole transaction is, on its face, a fraud, intended to evade the laws of Ohio. They are found in the words in which they are enacted, and are wholly repugnant to every claim of Griffith. The residence *of Fanny in Ohio, by the consent and connivance of Griffith, dissolved the connection of master and slave, and Fanny is free.
    
      
      Tlie principal case was cited with approval in Hunter v. Fulcher, 1 Leigh 181; Foster v. Fosters, 10 Gratt. 492.
    
   By the Court.

The Judgment is affirmed. 
      
      Cabbli. absent.