Contempt of Court Redux

I was reviewing some book reviews I wrote years ago in preparation for a lecture on the Supreme Court. This one would have been appropriate for my talk on the 14th Amendment, which was already too long, anyway, but it will fit nicely when I discuss the lack of enforcement powers of the Supreme Court. This was a case where they showed a bit of muscle and in 1906, no less, and related to the 14th Amendment.

I had forgotten that one of my Goodreads friends noted that it was popular in the south to have your picture taken at a lynching, especially if you were one of the perps, and have postcards made from the pictures which then were mailed to friends and relatives. Many of them are still available in antique shops and some were collected in a book and made into a movie. If you have the stomach for it you can look at them at https://withoutsanctuary.org.


My edited review from 2012:

Note. If you don't like spoilers, don't read the book since the first chapter reveals what happens right up front. Everyone else *should* read it. Often we labor under the assumption that because things are the way they are today, it must have been ever thus. This book will quickly disabuse you of that notion.

The extraordinary story of two heroic black lawyers who championed the case of an innocent man, a sheriff more interested in political advancement than justice, mob rule, and one of the very few times when the Supreme Court has issued a contempt citation for failure to follow its rulings, and the importance of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. To quote Thurgood Marshall: " The Shipp case was perhaps the first instance in which the court demonstrated the the Fourteenth Amendment and the equal protection clause have any substantive meaning to persons of the African-American race. . . .The import of the Sheriff Shipp case on the federal court's authority over state criminal cases should not be underestimated." It also meant that Justice Harlan was to become one of my most recent heroes.

The case began with the assault on a young white woman who had been walking home from work when she was attacked by a black man and although she was never able to identify him precisely, a black man roughly meeting her description by the name of Ed Johnson was arrested. There was another witness who swore he had seen Johnson with a leather strap in the vicinity. Johnson unwaveringly swore his innocence and had several witnesses who maintained he had been several miles away at a bar.

While Chattanooga had been a place of reasonable racial harmony for several years and had had no recent lynchings, (in fact, two well-respected local ministers, one having served with the union, the other with the Confederacy, were a strong force arguing against mob violence but they were out of town that evening,) a mob formed when they heard someone had been arrested and was soon whipped into such a frenzy they began to batter down the doors of the jail. They were only persuaded from further violence when Sam McReynolds, the judge assigned to the case, showed up and offered to prove that Johnson was not even there. He and the Sheriff had arranged earlier in the day to have Johnson and another marginal suspect taken to another city. Finally satisfied, the mob dispersed.

Before Gideon v Wainright, suspects had few rights and were not entitled to a lawyer. Unlike most states, however, Tennessee law required that a lawyer be appointed in capital cases. Also unlike today, which practice is now forbidden, it was common for judges to meet with prosecutors to plan the prosecution. The question was whom to appoint as the defense attorneys for John after the grand jury had returned a "true bill" of indictment. Despite numerous efforts, the Sheriff had been unable to get a confession from Johnson who continued to swear to his innocence.

The authors do a masterful job of portraying the case. The three court appointed lawyers really did their best against a stacked deck, especially Judge Shepherd who, in an impassioned summation to the jury, ripped the judge and prosecutors for not giving Johnson a fair trial. Initially the jury was split 8-4 for conviction, but after the judge sent them home for the night, he met with the prosecutors. No one knows what happened during that meeting but everyone feared the eruption that would occur should Johnson be found innocent or there be a hung jury. In any case, immediately upon returning to their deliberations the next morning, the jury announced they had a verdict and all four of the holdouts had changed their minds.

The trial itself had some startling scenes with a couple of jurors, in tears, requesting that the victim be brought back to testify and *they* asked her if she could swear that Johnson was her attacker. She never could with certainty. After the verdict Shepherd wanted to appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court but three more lawyers, appointed by the court, picked in a closed door meeting with the prosecution (highly unethical behavior) and, it was later admitted by the judge, two of whom were picked by the prosecution, persuaded Johnson, and the other lawyers that *even if he was innocent* it was better to be hung in the course of *justice* rather than by a lynch mob. When they announced their decision not to appeal the verdict, an extraordinary decision, the judge sentenced Johnson to hang, the penalty for rape in Tennessee.

They had failed to reckon with Noah Parden, whose resume alone is worth a book. His trip to Washington where he convinced Justice Harlan to issue a stay of execution and the later decision that resulted in the federal application of basic rights to the states under the 14th amendment is riveting. What Parden had managed to do was to persuade the Court of the need to apply the Sixth Amendment requirement of a fair trial to the states Due Process was not to mean simply did the rules get followed, but did the defendant get a fair trial. Equal Protection had to mean that black defendants would get the same presumptions of innocence and privileges accorded to white defendants.

Unfortunately, the significance was perhaps not lost on the mob, which, horrified that the federal court might deign to dispute its cherished denial of black men's rights, decided to enforce its own brand of morality. The Supreme Court has no enforcement powers but what they did was, I believe, never before, nor since, done. No spoilers here, read the book.

To give you a small flavor of the endemic racism that pervaded American society at the time, it was the practice of lawyers admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court to kiss the Bible as they were sworn in. After black lawyers were admitted to the bar, that practice was dispensed with because white lawyers refused to have their lips touch anything that might have been sullied by black lips.

Ed Johnson lies today forgotten in a closed African-American cemetery under a tombstone on which is inscribed, I AM A INNOCENT MAN. GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

Interestingly, much of the research for the book was done at Tuskeegee University in Alabama which has a detailed record of virtually every lynching. Many of the original documents are in terrible shape and part of the proceeds of the book will be allocated to help the preservation of those materials.

From Quora. David Shapiro on Colbert and Trump

Why does Stephen Colbert speak about President Trump in such an unprofessional and horrible manner?
David Schapiro

Let’s answer this question with another. You walk into a bar. There is a man there, speaking loudly. You hear him call one of the patrons “Crooked”. You hear him call another customer a “Liar”. He calls most of the customers “rapists and murderers.” You see him walk up to a war hero and call him a loser for having been captured defending the country. The bartender suggests that the man is being rude and not respecting his establishment. The loud man turns to the bartender and says “you’re a liar and a fake! Why are you lying about my behavior? “ The bouncer at the bar asks the man to calm down and respect the customers. The loud man says “Why are you singling me out! This is a witch hunt! Why don’t you go after the lady who was in the bar last week who was on her phone emailing all night!” The loud man starts bragging about grabbing women by the pussy, about how popular he is and how everyone loves him. About how he’s kicked out all the paying customers at the bar and brought in his friends and gave them free drinks which he had no authority to do.

A man in a suit stands up and says “sir, you’re being rude. This is a friendly establishment and you are demeaning it with your behavior.”

…and the man in the suit is the one who is horrible and unprofessional?

Mike Tidwell and John Barry and Katrina

I was listening to an older C-Span BookTV program--I often download the audio and it takes a while to get to them all -- that occurred after Hurricane Katrina. John Barry is the author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (My review is here) an extraordinary book, and Mike Tidwell, author of Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast that I have yet to read, but will.

The show, at the bookstore Politics and Prose in Washington, was taped not long after Katrina devastated New Orleans. Both of these authors had a great deal to say about that event and how the devastation could have been avoided. I remember there was lots of discussion at the time of the corruption of the New Orleans Levee Board, yet as Tidwell pointed out, that organization had no responsibility for the levees that failed. It was the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Government. And it must be remembered that while the hurricane was indeed strong, it was the over-topping of the Lake Ponchartrain levees and their failure (they were supposed to have been able to withstand much more than they did) that caused the disaster.

But New Orleans is sinking. It was built on the alluvial soil deposited by the Mississippi every year during its regular flooding. The New Orleans levees were built to prevent that flooding, so now New Orleans is the only U.S. city that is below sea level. Louisiana is losing 25 acres per day to erosion. Several university studies have made it clear that one solution is to rebuild the barrier islands. It could be done for $14 billion. That sounds like a hug amount, yet it was the cost of the Big Dig in Boston whose sole purpose was to speed traffic to Logan Airport and it was the cost of just six weeks in Iraq whose purpose was, well, just what was its purpose. Another $14 billion would be required to bring all the levees up to a better standard. Again, a lot of money. Yet the damage to repair New Orleans was the destruction of 300,000 homes and a cost of $125 billion of which on $80 billion was covered by insurance. So again, our failure to address infrastructure issues in this country in the face of increasing number of natural disasters, while we embark on outrageously expensive overseas ventures with little purpose or success, is nothing short of criminal. It's also symptomatic of a failed state.

Black Confederate Soldier Myth

Kevin Levin has posted the book proposal for a very interesting book due out this fall. The proposal itself makes for fascinating reading. It's available at Levin's site: http://cwmemory.com/searching-for-black-confederate-soldiers-the-civil-wars-most-persistent-myth/

Review: 38 Years a Detroit Firefighter's Story by Bob Dombrowski

A very personal memoir of the author's thirty-eight years as a Detroit firefighter, moving up through the ranks to become Chief. The gradual fall of Detroit and the terrible difficulties the firefighters were forced to endure as budget cuts and white flight (in which the firefighters themselves participated after suing for the right to live outside the city) is told quite humbly and with an undercurrent of humor. More about the politics of the department than the techniques, it was still an interesting read.

Interesting quotes: "If it is true that a nondrinker lives less than a drinker, then it is also true that a non-firefighter lives longer than a firefighter. According to the experts, firefighters have a ten-year-shorter life expectancy because of all the smoke, chemicals, and dangers they face. So firefighters should enjoy a few drinks daily. Losing seven years of your life is better than ten. Where the heck is my pea can?"

"Many injury letters started out with the words “While sliding the pole at 0735 hours, I twisted my knee” or “I twisted my ankle.” In fact, there were so many injuries while sliding down the pole at seven thirty in the morning that the Michigan Department of Safety got involved. Then somebody determined that the poles were dangerous and must be removed. This became a big argument with firefighters who loved the poles and wanted to keep them. They were a symbol of Detroit firefighting, just like the red trucks and our traditional helmets."

"Sometimes people will do things like throw out a mattress to soften their fall. And it can be dangerous for firefighters. We have had firefighters killed by jumpers landing on them."