State vs. Mann

Today I witnessed the trial of State vs. Mann. The event leading up to this case are as followed; Mr. Mann was a slave owner who was renting Lidia from her owner. Mann and Lidia’s owner agreed he could rent her for one year. While under Mann’s lease, Lidia had tried to escape. When he saw she was running away, he pulled out his gun and shot Lidia in the back, only injuring her. He was tried in state court and founded guilty, charged with assault and fined ten dollars. Mr. Mann is here today to overturn this ruling.

First to the stand was the State of North Carolina. They made multiple arguments as to why this ruling should stand. The first argument was that assault is assault across the board. They defined cruel and unusual punishment as any action that takes away dignity. Another argument was that it was damage to another property. Mr. Mann was only renting Lidia, he did not have full ownership, therefore he damaged someone else’s property. They brought in the aspect of religion, they spoke about the section of the Bible Exodus: 21,22. “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged.” Under God were are all equal and are brothers and sisters. Of course, the ethical reasons were brought into play. The idea that every human has the right to their own body and to decided what they want done to it; therefore, his actions cannot be justified. Their final argument was that there had been a similar case, State vs. Hale, and the owner’s guilty conviction had been upheld and this case seta precedent for State vs. Mann and other cases like this.

Mann’s side made counterarguments to most of these points. Their first point was that even though he was only renting Lidia, she was still his property for a year, therefore he could do with her what he pleased. The also brought in some constitutional aspects to support their arguments, such as the Three-Fifths Compromise and the Fugitive Slave Law which states that a slave can be punished for trying to run away from their owner. Another argument was that he was actually doing what was right. If he didn’t shoot her and she successfully got away, she could have starved to death or have been caught by bounty hunters and gotten injured much worse. They also turned the prosecutions religious argument against them. The prosecution failed to continue their quote, because if they did it would show that the master could indeed punish the slave.

The judge, after taking all arguments into consideration, ruled in favor of Mann, therefore is guilty verdict was overturned, charges were dropped and he did not have to pay his ten dollar fine.