| Summary: | The defendant, who was white, was indicted for affray with Bob Douglass, a free black man. The argument centred on Douglass accusing Jowers of lying, Douglass's defence being that Jowers had lied. The weapons used were a whip by Douglass and a branch by Jowers. Jowers's counsel argued that insulting language uttered by a black man to a white justified the level of violence Jowers had used. The court ruled that though it was permissible to meet such language from a slave with violence, it was not permissible when it came from a freeman. Jowers was found guilty and appealed. The Supreme Court found that insolent words to a white man from a slave were the equivalent of a blow from a white man, and so in law were an excuse for battery; that free blacks could not be chastised by justices of the peace, as slaves could be, and had no masters to chastise them; therefore white men were entitled to physically chastise free black men extrajudicially as no judicial penalty existed to give redress for any insolence from them. Verdict reversed and new trial awarded.
|
|---|