Source: http://openjurist.org/315/us/25
Timestamp: 2017-07-24 13:17:26
Document Index: 385066530

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 7408', '§ 7408', '§ 7408', '§ 7409', '§ 7408', '§ 7409']

315 US 25 Taylor v. State of Georgia | OpenJurist
315 U.S. 25 - Taylor v. State of Georgia Homethe United States Reports315 U.S.
315 US 25 Taylor v. State of Georgia 315 U.S. 25
62 S.Ct. 415
86 L.Ed. 615
TAYLORv.STATE OF GEORGIA.
And Section 7409 declares: 'Satisfactory proof of the contract, the procuring thereon of money or other thing of value, the failure to perform the services so contracted for, or failure to return the money so advanced with interest thereon at the time said labor was to be performed, without good and sufficient cause and loss or damage to the hirer, shall be deemed presumptive evidence of the intent referred to in the preceding section.'2
The indictment alleged that appellant had entered into a contract with R. L. Hardie to perform manual labor for $1.25 a day until he had earned $19.50 at that rate, that he had done so with the intent not to perform the services, that he had thus obtained the $19.50 as an advance, that he had failed without good and sufficient cause to do the work, that he had failed and refused to repay the $19.50, and that loss and damage to Hardie had resulted. Appellant demurred to the indictment, asserting that §§ 7408 and 7409, upon which it was based, were repugnant both to the Thirteenth Amendment and the Act of Congress passed pursuant to it,3 and to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The demurrer was overruled, exception was taken, and the case went to trial.
Hardie was the only witness for the State. He testified that the agreement had been made, that he had advanced the $19.50, that appellant had neither done the work nor returned the money, and that although appellant had said something about being sick, he had given no visible sign of it and had not been confined to bed. Under the statutes of Georgia4 appellant could not testify under oath, but he was permitted to make an unsworn statement in which he generally denied that he and Hardie had made the agreement or that Hardie had paid him the $19.50. The trial judge charged the jury in the language of §§ 7408 and 7409. He refused to instruct the jury that these sections are repugnant to the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.
We think the conviction must be reversed. There is no material distinction between the Georgia statutes challenged here and the Alabama statute which was held to violate the Thirteenth Amendment in Bailey v. Alabama, 219 U.S. 219, 31 S.Ct. 145, 55 L.Ed. 191.5 It is argued here, just as it was in the Bailey case, that the purpose of § 7408 is nothing more than the punishment of a species of fraud, namely, the obtaining of money by a promise to perform services with intent never to perform them. And the presumption created by § 7409 is said to be merely a rule of evidence for the trial of cases arising under § 7408. Actually, however, § 7409 embodies a substantive prohibition which squarely contravenes the Thirteenth Amendment and the Act of Congress of March 2, 1867.6 Its effect is to authorize the jury to convict upon proof that an agreement has been reached, that money has been advanced on the strength of it, that the money has not been returned, that the appellant has failed or refused to perform the services 'without good and sufficient cause,' and nothing more. The necessary consequence is that one who has received an advance on a contract for services which he is unable to repay is bound by the threat of penal sanction to remain at his employment until the debt has been discharged. Such coerced labor is peonage. And it is no less so because a presumed initial fraud rather than a subsequent breach of the employment contract is the asserted target of the statute. It is of course clear that peonage is a form of involuntary servitude within the meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment and that the Act of 1867 is an 'appropriate' implementation of that Amendment. Clyatt v. United States, 197 U.S. 207, 25 L.Ed. 429, 49 L.Ed. 726.