State V. John Mann Mock Trial

This week in "Talking About Freedom" the class participated in a mock trial for the John Mann case; Part of the class represented opinions of the state and another portion of the class represented the defense for John Mann. For those of you that do not know what this particular case is, I will leave a brief description below.

The John Mann Case-1829: John Mann was from North Carolina and had rented a female slave, named Lydia to use for a year. Lydia was disobedient and received a beating from Mann; she decided to run in the middle of the punishment. When she began to run Mann warned her that if she did not stop running, he would shoot her. Lydia continued to run and Mann shot her in the back. Although Lydia was not killed, she was injured and rendered useless as a slave. The court system fined Mann $10 (1800'

s currency) yet he felt that he should not even have received a fine at all.

The states opinions:

- Elizabeth Jones is the original slave owner and the only one that can rightfully punish the slave to such an extent

- Rentals must be returned in the form that they were given

- Argues that an injured slave is no good to the slave owner so the fine should be raised to compensate for the loss of a slave

-Law states that when you damage property you must pay for that property to be fixed or replaced. Since slaves are considered "property" he should pay to replace it. "You break it you buy it"

The defense :

- Since Mann was paying to use the slave for a year, he was technically her owner for that period of time. Therefore, he had the right to punish him anyway he seen fit.

-Slaves are considered property and not "people" meaning they do not have any rights.

- After 200 years of slavery it is customary to place harsh punishments, as needed, upon slaves so it shouldn't have been that big of a deal.

-Mann did not want to lose the slave that had to be returned later: it was better to return it broken than to not return it at all.