Two Unusual Lawsuits
One had to do u itli a verdict b<bing .set aside
because a word was misspelled: the other
with a \ej£ro who killiMl in self defense hut
was convicted of murder. .
WHEN Charles Dickens wrote
his great novel "Bleak
House," one of its important
characters was Beadle Bumble.
Bumble got into trouble with the
law, and made a classic remark
to the effect that “the law is a
ass." As 1 used to be a lawyer my¬
self, I hasten to state that 1 am op¬
posed to old man Bumble talking
that way. and that what he said
should be attributed to mental in¬
firmity. I suppose what he really
intended to say was that the
courts way back yonder were, at
times, slightly technical.
In the old days there were just
lots of homicides down in my
county of Robeson, and sometimes
the defendants got away with it,
because they had big lawyers to
represent them. Take State v.
Carter, 1 N. C. 406. Old man Car¬
ter stabbed a man and killed him.
Whereupon he was indicted by
the grand jury, the bill of indict¬
ment in the old form setting fourth
in quaint phrases that Carter "not
having the fear of god before his
eyes and being moved and seduced
by the instigation of the devil (this
much was probably true) stabbed
so and so." The bill carefully set
forth that the knife with which
the stabbing was done was worth
sixpensc. and the wound inflicted
upon the deceased was one inch
wide and four inches deep, and was
inflicted in the left brest.
Eloquent Arguments
Sir William Blackstone claimed
that the law was the perfection
of human reason, a statement
which the attorney for the defend¬
ant no doubt had in mind when
he took the steps hereinafter re¬
ferred to. William Duffy, of
Cumberland, was a big lawyer, and
he appeared for the defendant in
a big way. He rose to the heights
which a case of life and death in¬
volved, and when the case came
on to be heard on appeal before
the Court of Conference in 1800,
he moved the court to arrest the
judgment below on two grounds:
< a l . Because, in the indictment,
the term of court was not suffi¬
ciently expressed, the year being
By 1C. €. LA Wit HNCi:
written in numerical figures; and
(b). because that part of the indict¬
ment which stated the length and
breadth of the wound was not
sufficiently stated.
The five Judges thought that
brother Duffy was just too tech¬
nical, so they overruled his first
point. But they were with him
on his second contention, and ar¬
rested the judgment because in
the indictment the word "breast"
was spelled "brest." I know you
can but agree with Blackstone in
his great definition of the law
above referred to.
Judge Johnston wrote the
opinion of the court in which he
said that the judgment must be
arrested, because great strictness
was required in the language of
an indictment "altho in some cases
carried to a degree of critical
exactness not easily to be recon¬
ciled to good sense or sound
understanding." John Louis Tay¬
lor. who afterward become Chief
Justice, dissented, citing such au¬
thorities as Cro. Eliz. 137. 5 Co..
Ld. Ramy 1515, Salk. 660. Cro.
Jac. 133, and he waded into quite
a lot of Latin too. He might have
left off the Latin so far as I am
concerned, and as for the cases
cited, I do not need to read them.
The titles are sufficient to convince
me.
Case of State vs. Will
Now come to the epoch making
case of Stare v. Will, 18 N.
С.
121.
It has been asserted from the ear¬
liest times that self defense was
the first law of nature. But in this
case, the defendant was a slave,
and was not supposed to have any
rights which anyone was bound
to respect. He did not have even
a name, being designated as
"Negro Will, slave of James S.
Battle;" and this landmark of the
law was of course tried down in
Edgecombe and involved the Bat¬
tles from every angle.
The negro Will who was in¬
dicted for killing his overseer, be¬
longed to James S. Battle, grand¬
father of the eminent New York
lawyer George Gordon Battle.
The case was tried in 1834 before
Judge John R. Donnell, and the
jury returned a special verdict,
reciting facts which clearly showed
that the homicide was in self de¬
fense. Upon these facts, follow¬
ing the supposed precedents, the
presiding Judge found the slave
guilty of murder, sentenced him
to be hung, and let it go at that.
James S. Battle thought that if
such was the law it ought not to
be. so he took the trouble and went
to the expense of employing emi¬
nent counsel to protect the life
of his slave. He retained the
famous Bartholomew F. Moore,
ablest lawyer of his generation,
and one of the ancestors of Samuel
F. Mordeeai of Raleigh, to repre¬
sent the convicted defendant and
to save his life if possible. He paid
them a fee of SI. 000. That was
a whale of a fee for that day and
time, and I know lawyers even
now who would not refuse such n
retainer. I remember when I was
at the Bar. they used to gel out
calendars with two days marked
on them in red - Christmas and
Fourth of July. Whenever I heard
of a lawyer getting a thousand
dollar fee. I always got down my
calendar and marked that day in
red, because I liked to be reminded
of it. even if it was another lawyer
who was getting the money.
Before the Supreme Court
The case came on for argument
before the Supreme Court, and
there were big Battles on both
sides — or to put it another way, it
was a battle royal. The defendant
was owned by a Battle; the Attor¬
ney General was J. R. J. Daniel,
great-uncle of the New York law¬
yer; and one of the Supreme Court
Justices who heard the appeal was
Joseph J. Daniel, who was the
New York lawyer's grandfather.
The scrap was on, great lawyers
making great arguments before a
great court.
The Supreme Court at that time
was composed of Thomas Ruffin.
( Continued on page 26 >
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