State v Mann Recap

The focus of our class this week was a mock trial of the case State v Mann. The defendant in this case, John Mann, was charged with assault and battery after shooting a slave, Lydia, who he'd been renting. In the original trial, the jury ruled against him and fined him five dollars. This is shocking to me considering the jury was made up entirely of white, Southern men. Mann appealed the case, saying that a master assaulting their slave is not punishable because the slave is their property. Eventually, the case made it to the North Carolina supreme court where Mann won. This decision remains notorious in the legal field to this day.

I found it very interesting to listen to what arguments each side chose to use in this mock trial. They all would have made perfect sense to the jury when this case took place in 1829 but now they just sound ridiculous. You definitely can't look at these cases with a presentism attitude.

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