The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1904-06-29
IS FREED BY srEER
JUDGE PASSES ON RIGHTS OF
POLICE MAGISTRATE.
One Man Cannot Judge ImSamy, and
Only Jury May Send a
Person 20 the Chain
Gang.

Macon. Ga. June 2s.-United States
District Judge Emery Speer of the
Western Division of the Southern Dis
trict of Georgia, today rendered an
opinion of far-reaching Importance in
volving the authority OF municipal
courts all over. the country, to sentence
violators of municipal ordinances to
local chain gangs.
The case came before Judge Speer,
on writ of habeas corpus applied for
by Henry Jamison. a negro, for release
from the custody of e. A. Wfmbish,
superintendent of the 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 retfase,
In passing on the cass. Judgt Speef
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
is whether the recorder of Macon can
without any. sort of criminal pleading
and without the Intervention of n Jury
convict a citizen twice for violation
aof municipal ordinance and sentence
him to seven months at hard labor on
the public chaingang the punishment
to be suffered in branch of the peni-
Tertiary"
Continuing he said:
Can IT be maintained In the light of
the constitution that one man, under
any form of procedure, devised or to
be devised by local Legislation, can
consign men, women and children to a
chaingang for such trivial offenses as
are within the Jurisdiction of a pslice
magistrate?'
Judge speer severely scored the
chain gang methods and said:
Indeed, II may be with entire accu-
racy declared that the voluminous and
exhaustive preparation of the city at
torney at the subsequent examination
by the court has evoked no shred of
authority, either American or English.
where a sentence by police magis-
trate to public chain gang, with the
ignominious accessories of letters, the
stripes. lash and of the degradation of
convict life has been sustained or even
palliated Under the American system
the chain gang has no place in the iu-
risdiction and procedure of police
courts where trial by jury is not a
right of the accused"
He then declared the sentence of
the recorder void. for want of due pro-
not judge infamy. Like thousands of
the oppressed and down trodden," he
said, through all the centuries since
that glorious day in the history of hu-
man liberty when the charter made
forever imperishable the principle that
no free man may be taken or impris-
oned except by the lawful Judgment of
his peers, or by the law of the land
he applies for the great writ of right.
~.
bly, seeks the portals of the court
whose Judges are sworn to know no
difference between the rich and the
poor, where justice ever bends the lis
tening ear to catch the plant of the
humble and the lowly."
If. he said, further. the prayer of the
petitioner must be denied, then the
statute authorizing the United States
Courts and the judges thereof to is
sue the writ of habeas corpus to pro-
tect the rights of the citizen guaran-
teed by the national constitution, have
at last been successfully nullified"
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 man previously respectable, II
had no such effect on a respectable me-
gro.
He held that such considerations do |
not appeal to a court charged with the |
equal enforcement of the law and he |
did not believe they met the approba-
tIon of the best people of the South |
ern States, nor were they conducive |
to the welfare of the South or hopeful |
for It's future.
Judge Speer concludes with an argu-
ment made by him twenty years ago.
and which he reaffirms. In this he said
that. though thu color line expert may
so declare this is no color line case, IL |
is a negro to-day. 1t will be a white
man aye, a white child and a white
woman tomorrow. In this court the
law Is equal and so are ALL"