Amazon.com Review
Prior to 1906, the U.S. Supreme Court had never tried a criminal case--and the high court had yet to assert its power over state criminal courts. That was all to change after the events of a cold January night earlier that year in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Blond, beautiful, 21-year-old Nevada Taylor had hopped on one of Chattanooga's new electric trolleys after work. Before she could reach home, the young woman was waylaid and raped by an unknown assailant. At first Taylor couldn't describe her attacker to town sheriff Joseph Shipp, as she hadn't seen the man clearly, but she soon became convinced he was "a Negro with a soft, kind voice." In just 17 days, a drifter dubbed a "Negro fiend" by the
Chattanooga News had been hastily arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang.
Two idealistic black lawyers intervened, filing appeals to the state and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court, citing the numerous rights denied the most-likely innocent Ed Johnson. (One of the attorneys said of the suspect, "But for the will of God, that is me.") The high court agreed to hear the appeal, staying the Tennessee execution. But back in Chattanooga, the politically minded Sheriff Shipp looked the other way as a bloodthirsty crowd of hundreds broke Johnson out of jail, beat him brutally, and lynched him on the county bridge.
Mark Curriden, a legal writer for the Dallas Morning News, and Leroy Phillips, a Chattanooga trial attorney, have painstakingly researched and vividly recounted the events of this oft-overlooked but significant episode in America's legal history, from the details of the original crime to the eventual federal conviction of Shipp and members of the lynch mob for contempt. A superb combination of journalistic storytelling and academic rigor. --Paul Hughes
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
A little-known chapter in American legal history gets expert, well-deserved treatment by Curriden, legal affairs writer for the Dallas Morning News, and Phillips, a Tennessee trial attorney. The exciting narrative concerns the legal and social aftermath of the 1906 trial of Ed Johnson, a black man, for the rape of Nevada Taylor, a white woman, in Tennessee. Intimidated by threats of social unrest, the local court and law enforcement officers railroaded Johnson through an unjust trial and sentenced him to death by hanging. After Johnson's conviction, a team of local lawyers rushed to the Supreme Court for an appeal and stay of execution. In a little-used proceeding that allows for an interim decision by just one of the justices, Noah Parden, a black attorney, made the argument to Justice John Marshall Harlan and won the stay. But the local Chattanooga population became so enraged by what they saw as federal interference in local affairs that, with the assistance of the local sheriff, they stormed the jailhouse and lynched Johnson. The Supreme Court then held its first criminal trial, with the justices sitting as jurors in the case against the lynchers. The book succeeds on two levels: as an analysis of a legal precedent that paved the way for the Supreme Court, many years later, to find that the Bill of Rights applied to the states; and as a dramatic story, written with novelistic flair, of a few brave individuals who refused to be cowed by mob rule. 20 pages b&w photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
