The Brunswick times. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 188?-1900, 1897-03-21
IN PRISON BY ERROR.
LEE SERVED FOURTEEN YEARS WITH
OUT BEING CONVICTED.

Arrested In 1882 on Charge of Murder
He Was Found Guilty, but
New Trial Observation-Disclosures Purely Cir
cumstantial-NOw He Is Free Again.
Major Lee, negro, who is now
stalwart man, but was a STRIPPING when
first incarcerated, has just been released
from the Georgia state penitentiary, or
more properly from the chain gang at
Hoodoo, in johnson county, after a
term of ID years at hard labor. 1t has
been found that his imprisonment was
due to an error.
In the fall of 1889 Major Lee was a
lad working in Bullock county on lit
tie farm managed by relative of the
same name. One day he and his cousin,
Ebert Lee, accompanied the old man
to Savannah to sell the crop of cotton
which they had grown on the farm.
After the cotton had been sold the old
man put the money into his pocket and
he and the two boys started for home.
That night they camped about ten miles
from the city, and on the following
morning Major appeared at the house of
a backwoods farmer and reported that
somebody had attacked and murdered
his uncle during the night and had
beaten his cousin Ebert on the head
until he was almost dead. An investi-
cation revealed the fact that the body
of the dead man had been robbed. The
younger man was still alive, but was
not able to give any account of the at
tack Major Lee claimed to have been
frightened by the noise of the attack
and to have fled, thus escaping with his
life.
Major Lee was arrested and carried
to Savannah Jail, where he was kept
until his trial came off. The court APP
pointed Colonel Falligant to defend
him, and the jury brought in verdict
of guilty, with recommendation to
mercy, which, under the laws of Geor-
gia saved him from the gallows. A
motion for new trial was made, and
the case was taken to the supreme court
Oh appeal. That was in 1888, and soon
afterward Major Lee was turned over
to the lessees of the state penitentiary
and sent TO the coal mines at Cole City
to begin serving a life sentence. In the
meantime the supreme court granted
Lee new trial on the ground that the
evidence in the case, which was purely
circunstantial, was insufficient to war
rant conviction.
Colonel Falligant was elevated to the
bench, and new counsel was appointed
to defend Lee when the new trial should
come off But weeks heightened into
months and months into years, and Lee
continued to delve in the mines at Cole
City. For 70 years he remained there,
although he was entitled to a new trial,
and he would have been there until
now had not the lessees of the coal mine
property failed to pay certain fines i'm
posed upon them by the governor,
which resulted in the annulment of
their contract with the state, and the
convicts in their charge were turned
over to another lessee, and Lee was re-
moved from his dungeon underground
to toll at sawmill at Hoodoo. That
was done last year, and Lee remained
at the sawmill until the case was IN
earthed in the clerk office in Savannah,
and it caused sensation. The princi-
pal keeper of the penitentiary at once
ordered James, the lessee in charge of
Hoodoo camp, to send Lee to Savannah
He was kept i'll Jail q few days, and
Judge Galloway was requested to call a
special session Of the superior court to
give Lee a new trial. as Judge Falli-
giant was disqualified.
On the call of the case there was no
prosecutor, as those interested in the
case had all died or moved away, and
Lee was released from custody after
having served for 4 years in the chain
gang for a crime of which he has never
been proved guilty. Under the peniten-
tiary regulations this amounts to a 20
year term.
When first released, Lee did not seem
to know what to do with himself. He
had been cut off from all association
with the outside world so long that he
could scarcely realize what freedom
meant. With his aged father he left the
city and will now take up the old rou-
tine Of plantation work where he left
off many years ago. -New York Sun.