The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1904-07-01
SCORES CHAIN GANG METHODS.
Decision OF Judge Speer i'm a Case OF
Far Reaching Importance nvoIv-
ing a City's Authority to Sentence
for Violation OF Municipal Ordi-
nancPS

|
Macon, Ga, June 2S.-United.
States District Judge Emery Speer, of
n western division of the southern
district Of Georgia, today rendered al
opinion of ~far-reaching Importance,
involving the authority OF municipal
courts all over the country to SEN
tence violators Of municipal ordi-
nances TO local chain gangs.
The case came before Judge Speer
on a writ of habeas corpus applied
for by Henry Jamison, a negro. for
release from the custody of E. A.
Wimbish, superintendent of Bibb
county, Georgia, chain gang. Judge
Speer in a lengthy opinion decided
that the superintendent was without
authority to hold the prisoner. and
directed his immediate release.
In passing on the case. Judge Speer
called attention to the fact that the
commitment from the recorders
court was a sentence and nothing
more" and that there was no finding
Of guilt or innocence by the recorder.
The question involved" said Judge
| Speer, lis whether the recorder of
Macon can, without any sort of GRIM
ina pleading and h the inter-
| vention of a jury, convict a citizen
twice for violation of a municipal
ordinance and sentence him to seven
months at hard labor on the public
chain gang, the punishment to be
suffered in a branch of the peniten-
tiary." Continuing he said:
Can it be maintained in the light
of the constitution that one man un-
der any form of procedure, devised
or to be devised by local legislation,
can consign men, women M children
to a chain gang for such trivial Of
lenses as are within the jurisdiction
of a police magistrate"
Judge Speer severely scored the
chain gang methods, and said:
Indeed, it may be with entire &C
curacy declared hat the voluminous
and exhaustive preparation of the
city attorney and the subsequent ex-
animation by the court has evoked
no shred of authority. either Ameri-
can or English, where a sentence by
a police magistrate to a public chain
gang, with the ignominious acces-
series of letters, the stripes, lash and
of the degradation of convict life has
been sustained or ever palliated. I'm
der the American system the chain
gang has no place in the jurisdiction
n procedure of police courts where
trial by jury is not a right of the
I accused"
He then declared the sentence of
| the recorder void, for want of due
process Of law and because one man
cannot judge infamy. Like thous-
ands of the oppressed and down
trodden," he said, through all the
centuries since that glorious day in
the history of human liberty, when
the Great Charter made forever i'm
i nariShahla tho n~rinpin1o that Nnn free
man may be taken or imprisoned but
by the lawful judgment of his peers
or by the law of the land he applies
for the great writ of right, the writ
of habeaS orpuS and he humbly
seeks the portals of the court whose
| judges are sworn to know no differ
ence between the rich and the poor,
| where justice ever bends the listen
ing ear to catch the plant of the
humble and the lowly. If" he said
further, the prayer of petitioner
must be denied, then the statute au-
thorizing the United States courts
and the judges thereof to issue the
writ of habeas corpus to protect the
rights of the citizen, guaranteed by
the national constitution, have at last
been successfully nulliied."
Judge Speer declared that the argu-
ment had been advanced by a road
commissioner that while a sentence
to the chain gang would forever ruin
a white nan previously respectable,
it had no such effect or a respectable
negro. He held that such consider
ations do not appeal to a court
charged with the equal enforcement
of the law. and ne did not believe
they met the appreciation of the best
people of the southern states, nor
| were they conducive to the welfare
| of the south Or hopeful for it's future.
Judge Speer concludes with an
| argument made by him twenty years
| ago, and which he reaffirms. In this
! he said that though the color line
expert may SO declare, this is no
| color line case. 1t is a negro today.
| 1t will be a white man-aye a white
| child n a white woman-tomorrow.
In this court the law is equal for