Arizona republican., 1904-07-21
LegaIlzed Slavery in Georgia.


 Judge Emory Speer, of the United States district court for the southern district of Georgia, has favored The Republican with an autograph copy of his now celebrated opinion in the case of Henry Jamison vs. E. A. Wimbush, Superintendent, handed down on the 2Sth of June, The opinion was rem dered in granting the petition of Jami- son under a writ of habeas corpus for release from one of Georgia's chain gangs.
 Jamison, in the words of Judge Speer's opinion, lis a respectable col ored man, between ffty-fve and sixty years of age. It appeared that he was working for many of the reputable people, of Macon in house cleaning, lay ing carpets, and like work" On a night in March Of this year he was ar rested by two policemen. carried imme- diately to the city prison and placed in a cell. The next morning he was taken before the city recorder and put on trial for being drunk and disor- derly."
 He was immediately convicted and an aggregate fine imposed of $6O, with an alternative penalty of seven months at hard labor in the chaingang. Judge Speer points out that for a poor day laborer like this man to pay fine of s6O was impossible. At noon. the same day, he was sent to the chaingang was at once clothed Tn the stripes of a convict. heavy manacles connected by a chain were riveted on each leg, and he was immediately put to work on the public road, with other con victs from the recorders court and from the state penitentiary-indiscti inateIy-at manual labor "as severe" according to Judge Speer, "as any of which the human frame is capable" He remained with the chaingang five days. when the writ of habeas corpus was sued out in his behalf and he was taken before the federal court, on the constitutional plea that he was de- prived of his liberty ard subjected to infamous punishment without due process of law.
 Tt is observable" says Judge Speer. nocence by the recorder, and no finding of fact It is a sentence and nothing more"
 The opinion is a powerful and un- answerable indictment of the system of illegally subjecting respectable men to degrading punishment for petty misde- meanors-a system which prevails in the police courts of numerous cities and especially is it a blistering pro against the infamous chaingang system of the south. For petty offenses weeks and months of hard labor are imposed under condit- ions which do not distinguish the pun ishment from that imposed in state prison. In short. the right of trial by jury is denied, and the liberty and very life of a citizen of Georgia-if he be poor and friendless--is subject to the whim of a city recorder and the over seer of a chaingang. Instances of death under the brutal treatment ac- corded prisoners in Georgia's chain gangs are numerous. Worst of all, ig- norant and comparatively inoffensive boys for prankish oftenses are sent to these chaingangs, forced to work in the stripes of a convict and forced to associate with hardened criminals from the state prison. Judge Speer describes the horrible con- ditions of this punishment, in which in nocent boys are bracketed with the worst prisoners of the penitentiary under the provisions of Georgia's good roads" law: