The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1904-07-07
Judge Speer Hands Down a Ruling
of Wide Application
AGAINST CHAlN.GANG SENTENCES
United States Court Judge Emory
speer, of Georgia, Orders the Re-
lease of a Negro Prisoner Sent Up
BY a Recorder, Holding That There
Had Been No Finding of Guilt or
Innocence by the Official.

District Judge Emory Speer, Of the
western division Of the southern dis
trict of Georgia, has rendered an opin-
ion OF far-reaching importance, involv-
ing the authority Of municipal courts
all over the country to sentence viola
tors of municipal ordinances to local
chain-gangs. The case came before
Judge Speer on a writ Of habeas cor
pus applied for by Henry Jamison, a
negro, for release from the custody of
E. A. Wimbish, superintendent Of the
Bibb county, Ga, chain-gang. Judge
6peer in lengthy opinion decided that
the superintendent was without au-
thority to hold the prisoner and di-
rected his immediate release.
In passing on the case Judge SpeeE
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 jury.
convict citizen twice for violation Of
q 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 peni-
teptiary."
Continuing, he said: "Can it be main
tanned in the light Of the constitution
that one man, under any form Of pro-
cedure, devised or to be devised, by
local legislation, can consign men,
women and children to a chain-gang
for such trivial offenses as are within
the jurisdiction Of police magistrate?"
Judge Speer severely scored the chain
gang methods and said: Indeed, 1t
may be with entire accuracy declared
that the voluminous and exhaustive
preparation OF the city attorney and
the subsequent examination by the
court has evoked no shred Of author
ity, either American or English, where
a sentence by a police magistrate to a
public chain-gang, with the ignominous
accessories Of fetters, 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 Jurisdiction
and procedure of police courts where
trial by jury is not right OF the ac-
cused."
He declared the sentence Of the re-
corder void for want Of due process OF
law and because one man cannot judge
infamy. Like thousands Of the op-
pressed and down-trodden," he said,
Through all the centuries since that
glorious day in the histor yof the hu-
man liberty when the great charter
made forever imperishable the princi-
pie that no free man be taken or i'm
prisoned 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 corpus; he humbly seeks
the portals of the courts whose judges
are sworn to know no difference be-
tween the rich and the poor, where JUS
tice ever bends the listening ear to
catch the plant of the humble and the
lowly.
If" he said further, "the prayer
petitioned must be denied, then the
statute authorizing 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 nullified."