1) Dep Att Gen Rod Rosenstein
"Administration of Justice" Speech (excerpt)
(11/01/17)
"United States v. Shipp is the only criminal case tried in the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1906, a young Chattanooga, Tenn, woman reported she was raped as she was walking home from work at night.
"Administration of Justice" Speech (excerpt)
(11/01/17)
"United States v. Shipp is the only criminal case tried in the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1906, a young Chattanooga, Tenn, woman reported she was raped as she was walking home from work at night.
2) "Authorities announced a reward ... The next day, a witness ... identified a black man, Ed Johnson, who was immediately arrested and charged with the rape. After a three-day trial that featured dubious eyewitness identifications, Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death.
3) "Mr. Johnson filed a habeas corpus petition. He alleged a violation of his constitutional rights, including the deprivation of his life without the due process of law.
4) "Johnson argued that his trial attorneys had been precluded from filing pretrial motions, that African Americans had been excluded from the jury, and that his trial was tainted by the fear of mob violence. A federal judge denied the petition.
5) "Johnson’s attorneys filed an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, which granted the appeal and ordered the Sheriff of Hamilton County, John Shipp, to maintain custody of Johnson. But the Sheriff allowed a mob to break into the jail.
6) "Sheriff Schipp stepped aside as the mob dragged Johnson to a bridge across the Tennessee River, where they hanged him and shot him dozens of times.
Johnson’s final words were: 'God bless you all. I am innocent.'
Johnson’s final words were: 'God bless you all. I am innocent.'
7) "The Department of Justice was outraged by the affront to the rule of law. Attorney General William Moody sent agents to Chattanooga to investigate the murder. Then he took the unprecedented step of charging Shipp and others with criminal contempt of the Supreme Court.
8) "The Supreme Court accepted original jurisdiction. Thus, on 10/15/06, Shipp and his co-defendants became the only defendants to come before the Supreme Court and enter pleas of “not guilty.” They argued the Supreme Court was a party and could not preside over the trial.
9) "Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes answered, 'The court is not a party. There is nothing that affects the judges in their own persons. Their concern is only that the law should be obeyed and enforced, and their interest is no other than that they present in every case.'
10) "AG Charles Bonaparte (argued) 'never (before) has an order of this court been disobeyed with such impunity. Justice is at an end when orders of the highest & most powerful court in the land are set at naught. Obedience to its mandates [is] essential to our institutions.'
11) "The Supreme Court convicted Sheriff Shipp and several of his co-defendants. Chief Justice Melville Fuller wrote that 'if the life of anyone in the custody of the law is at the mercy of a mob, the administration of justice becomes a mockery.'”
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