Court Opinion

ID: 9417983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:45:56.019122+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:53.709165
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan:
I concur with my brethren in holding that the statutes in question relating to peonage are valid under the Constitution of the United States. I agree also that the record sufficiently shows that it - contains all the evidence introduced at the trial.
*223But I cannot agree in holding that the trial court erred in not taking the case from the jury. Without going into the details of the evidence, I care only to say that, in my opinion, there was evidence tending to make a case within the statute. The opinion of the court concedes that there was abundant testimony to show that the accused with another went from Georgia to Florida to arrest the two negroes, Gordon and Ridley, and take them against their will back to Georgia to work out a debt. And they were taken to Georgia by force. It'is conceded that peonage is based upon the indebtedness of the peon to the master. The accused admitted to one of the witnesses that the negroes owed him. In any view, there was no motion or request to direct a verdict for the defendant. The accused made no objection to the submission of the case to the jury, and it is going very far to hold in a case like this, disclosing barbarities of the worst kind against these negroes, that the trial court erred in sending the case to the jury.