The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-11-23
Death Sentence Passed on
 Vance Garner.
JURY IS oUI $ MINUTES
Trial of Will. Johnson Imm .-
 diately Begun.
Vance Garner Perpetrates Joke When the Verdict That He Must Go to Gallows Is Made
 Known.
By VIII T. sheehan |.


 .sadsden, Nov 22.--(Special Corre- spondence. )--vance Garner must stand with Jack Hunter sn the gallows, side by side with him to swing and dance on air. An Etowah County jury today declared by it's verdict that Vance Gar ner was with Jack Hunter on that ter rible night on the mountain when Mrs. | Sarah Jane Smith was savagely mur- dered and that he was as much respon- ! sibie for the horrors done under the cover of darkness as Jack Hunter. The jury was out only fifty-five min utes. Garner, the black negro, only squirmed in his seat and grinned until his straight white teeth showed be- tween his thick lips when he heard the verdict. He slouched indiferently out of the room with a deputy sheriff who said to him: This hanging business is pretty hard. isn't 1t Vance"
 Tt don't seem to be hard for dem white folks to do; way dey are hang ing niggers." said Garner, grinning de- lightedly over his own joke.
 Garner had scarcely left the room before the case against Will Johnston, charging him in the same way as Hun ter and Garner had been charged. with the murder of Mrs. Smith. was called. Johnston is a big black negro with mustache and side burns. He takes keener interest in the proceedings and his face is sterner. although no more pleasant to look at than the faces of Hunter and Garner
 The jury was organized and the court was well into the evidence when the hour for adjournment arrived.
 New Evidence Needed.
 The Solicitor may, and, no doubt has, new evidence connecting Johnston with the killing of Mrs. Smith, evidence that was not brought out when Hunter and hai trtoA mt ' te eraliy believed that the testimony against Johnston will not be so strong as that introduced against the other two. 1t will have to do with his rnove- inent on the night of the murder near and around the scene Cf the prime. If he has made confession like Hunter and Garner itsis not generally known, .Jchuston la Kentucky negro, recent Iy come to Gadsden., while Garner and Hunter have lived their lives here
 As hour after hour the white mans court moves on. and negro after ne- gro Is before the bar to be tried for his life, the proceedings rise even above the solemnity and dignity of a court of law passing upon life and death and become a demonstration. a rare study of races. It shows the diff ference between the dominant race and the inferior race Is that far more than the difference between the white mans
 
 This fact goes home when one studA ies the moving forces that are behind this scene, in which the black man is the prisoner at the bar and the man prosecuting and demanding his life is a man with a white skin. The white man has put his womankind upon the highest pedestal. He sets his woman kind higher than the women of any race were ever set. He gives them the homage that the women of no other race have ever received. No inferior race must touch them. It Is death to do it. In other days and often in these days, it is death at the hands Of an aroused and outraged mob.
 But the white man has put the sa- credness, the invioability of his wo- mankind in his drafted laws and the laws more certain than the mob de- mand the life of: the violator of the white woman.
 Warden Tells of Confession.
 When court convened for the morn ing session Warden J. P. Mccoy took the stand and repeated the conversation which took place between Vance Gar ner and Jack Hunter when the latter was arrested and brought to the jail in Birmingham. Each laid the crime on the other. Jack Hunter said, You know I came up and saw you and Will Johnson have hold of Mrs. Smith. You were trying to shove a towel in her mouth" And then Garner said. No. you didn't; you know I saw you and Will Johnson have her. and you were trying to put the towel in her mouth. You know I tried to make you stop and you cursed me and told me to go on away"
 The same conversation was testified to by Deputy Sheriff ] N. Curl. Vance Garner had said that before the killing at the railroad crossing he had seen IAE 11 oCG Hun ka~ ont fNKyO new towels in two He had a little later met up with. Jack Hunter Will Johnson and Bunk Richardson in the furnace rards He said further that Jack and Will left him and Bunk. He heard a woman scream and ran down in the woods where he found Jack Hun ter and Will Johnson holding Mrs Smith. The next morning he saw Will Johnson and Jack Hunter and drunk ep white man he didn't know. Hunter told him that Mrs. Smith had been killed and the white man said, 'Nigger you killed her"
 Hammond Gives Location.
 J. W. Hammond was again called to the stand, to point out the different To- cations and distances on the map he had drawn on the oil cloth floor He was asked particularly as to the spot on which the body was found. and its distance from various other points or
 
 wanted by the judge and jury on the location of Crap Shooters Hill"
 Here the State rested It's case. Bunk Richardson was called to the stand fol the first time to give testimony in be. half of Vance Garner. Richardson wal originally thought to be one of tho guilty parties. He has been kept ir jail since the crime was committed, but he was not indicted by the grand jury He was supposed to know a great dea about the crime and his testimony wal awaited with considerable interest. H. is a young negro, big and yellow witt smallpox marks on his face. He saiC he had seen Vance Garner in the early part of the night on Third Avenue. Ali ter Vance left the witness, the latter went to the house of Lucy Mayo. anC the witness with Lucy and Hattie Gar ner went by the still house. The two women went on to 'Crapshooter's HiIl' and the witness came back to the stil house Nearby ha mat Crockett Whit moro and the two smith boys All o ihen drank some whiskeH. The wit