I’m often given a stack of legal magazines while visiting our son and his family, and one article that I’ve saved is titled, “A Supreme Case of Contempt” by Mark Curriden published in the June 2009 ABA Journal. You can tell by the date that it took a considerable time before I could post something about this incredibly sad and disturbing story. The article tells the remarkable story of United States v. Shipp. It was the first and only criminal trial in the history of the Supreme Court. There were nine defendants, and all were charged with contempt of the Supreme Court. The U.S. Attorney had filed the charges directly with the court, which gave it “…original jurisdiction in the matter.” The charges alleged that the defendants engaged in action “…with the intent to show their contempt and disregard for the orders of this honorable court…and for the purpose of preventing Ed Johnson from exercising and enjoying a right secured to him by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” Ed Johnson was a young black man convicted of raping a white woman despite ample evidence he was innocent. He was lynched after police officials stood aside to allow him to be taken by a mob.

The story begins with a 21 year old white woman named Nevada Taylor who was on her way to work in Chattanooga, TN on January 23, 1906. An assailant approached her from behind, put a leather strap around her neck, threatened to kill her if she screamed, and raped her. She ran home and her father called Hamilton County Sherriff Joseph F. Shipp to report the crime. The newspaper report of the “fiendish crime” said that Taylor had not seen the assailant. The report described the assailant as a “Negro brute.” There was a $375 reward announced for anyone who could identify the attacker. A white man named Will Hixxon read about the reward and said he had seen Ed Johnson, a young black man, carrying a leather strap near the scene of the crime about the time it had occurred. Shipp arrested Johnson, who maintained his innocence during a three hour interrogation. Johnson said he had been in a saloon and gave names of a dozen men who could vouch for his story.

Johnson was put in the country jail and a mob of several hundred men arrived to lynch him. A judge told the mob that justice would be swift and the mob disbursed. A trial began within a couple of weeks and Nevada Taylor pointed at Johnson and told the all-white jury “I believe he is the man.” Hixxon, who had claimed the reward, then told the jury he had seen Johnson near the scene. Under cross examination and with testimony from rebuttal witnesses it became apparent that Hixxon wasn’t near the scene of the crime. It was testified that Hixxon had walked by the church where Johnson was working on the roof the morning after the reward was announced and had asked about his name. Hixxon filed the report about seeing Johnson near the scene of the crime an hour after seeing Johnson on the roof of the church and asking his name. Nevada Taylor was asked by a Juror whether she was certain Johnson was the attacker. She replied,” I will not swear that he is the man, but I believe he is the Negro who assaulted me.” Johnson was convicted of rape and sentenced to death. He stood before the court and said, “The jury says I am guilty, and I guess I have to suffer for what someone else has done.”

Noah W. Parden and Styles L. Hutchins, two black lawyers in Chattanooga, were convinced to file appeals. The judge rejected the appeal, and the attorneys filed an appeal with the Tennessee Supreme Court seeking an emergency stay of execution. The appeal was unanimously denied. The lawyers took the case to the U.S. District Court in Knoxville. The judge declared he had doubts about the case and expressed the opinion that the threat of mob violence had influenced the outcome. He said he did not have the legal authority to grant the habeas petition, but issued a 10-day stay of execution and permitted Johnson’s lawyers to appeal directly to the Supreme Court. This set off a lengthy series of legal maneuvering, and a group of men set fire to the law office of Parden and Hutchins. Justice John Marshall Harlan allowed the case to be appealed.

Word spread about the court ruling and a mob arrived at the jail after Shipp had told all his deputies to take the night off with the exception of a 72-year-old jailer. The mob began pounding on the door with sledge hammers. Shipp arrived and was told to lock himself in the bathroom. He complied. The mob finally broke into the jail after three hours, drug Johnson to a bridge, put a noose around his neck, and told him he might as well confess.  Johnson was recorded as saying, “I am ready to die. But I never done it. I am going to tell the truth. I am not guilty. I am not guilty. I have said all the time that I did not do it and it is true. I was not there. God bless you all. I am innocent.”

Johnson was lifted into the air by his neck, but he did not die quickly. He was shot as many as 50 times perhaps not counting the five times he was shot after a bullet severed the rope holding him and his body fell to the bridge. The deputy who fired the last five shots pinned a note to Johnson’s chest that read, “To Justice Harlan. Come get your n—-r now.”

There were newspaper reports including in the Washington Post and New York Times that mentioned, in part, that there had been open defiance of the Supreme Court.  U.S. Attorney General William Moody sent Two Secret Service agents to investigate. A petition was issued charging Sheriff Shipp, six deputies, and 19 leaders of the mob with contempt of the Supreme Court. Shipp and his fellow defendants stood before the court on October 15 to enter “not guilty” pleas and post bond. The trial began February 12, 1907. A motion was filed that the Supreme Court did not have authority to intervene in a state criminal matter. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes rejected the motion.

The trial was held at the federal courthouse in Chattanooga and lasted more than a year. The justices did not attend. Charges were eventually dropped against several defendants. In a 5-3 vote Shipp, one deputy, and four leaders of the mob found guilty of contempt. Shipp and two others were sentenced to 90 days and the others to 60 days in the U.S. jail in the District of Columbia.  All were released early and Shipp returned to a hero’s welcome in Chattanooga by more than 10,000 cheering supporters. A monument was erected in his honor. Noah Parden and Styles Hutchins never returned to Chattanooga. Parden would likely have been the first African-American lawyer to argue a case before the Supreme Court if Johnson had not been murdered. Every one of the constitutional arguments he presented were eventually affirmed by the Court.

The front side of Ed Johnson’s headstone reads, “God Bless you all. I AM A Innocent Man.”