State v. Mann

Today in class, classmates recreated the North Carolina Supreme Court case of State v. Mann. The case originally took place in 1830. The state of North Carolina attempted to prosecute John Mann for assault and battery on a slave named Lydia who belonged to a woman named Elizabeth Jones. Jones rented Lydia to Mann for a set period of time in exchange for money. Mann whipped Lydia for misbehaving and as she attempted to run from his whip, he shot her in the back. While the shot did not kill her, it did impair her, which made her less able to perform tasks of manual labor as efficiently as she had been able to before. The state of North Carolina took Mann to court with a charge of assault and battery, and Mann ended up winning the case with the argument that slave renters have the same rights as slave owners since they are given the privileges by the owners, and since slave owners can be cruel to their slaves without government interference, so can the renter (in this case, Mann).

Both the prosecution and the defense brought strong arguments to the class. The prosecution (The state) argued that Mann should be charged with assault and battery and pay a fine of five dollars. One of their supporting arguments was that there were laws in place against the mistreatment of animals, and although slaves were only considered three-fifths of a person at the time, they were still partly considered human so the consequences for mistreatment of slaves should be equal or greater than the consequences for mistreatment of animals. The defense met that point with the rebuttal that the three fifths compromise was only related to the number of representatives a state received in congress, and therefore, it was not applicable to the case at hand.

The council of the state also pointed out that the bible condemns slavery. A passage was read which disapproved race based slavery, as well as the stealing and selling of people. the defense challenged them by saying that the good that slavery does for the south and the country as a whole cancels out the bad and the fact that it is condemned by the bible. The defense said that slavery is so economically stimulating to the country that it is necessary for trade with other countries and that the American economy would completely crash if slavery were to be stopped. They also said that slavery is not such a bad thing as many slaves were kept inside the master's home almost as members of the family to be fed and housed for free.

After both the prosecution and the defense had made their points, Judge Thomas Ruffin made the decision in favor of Mann that he was not to pay the five dollar fine and all charges would be dropped as slavery is necessary and slave renters are granted the same rights as slave owners (to treat the slaves how ever they see fit).

Limited Diversity in Massachusetts Police Forces

Amidst the confusion in Ferguson, Missouri, other states are discovering similar cases of racial divide between citizens and police force members. In Massachusetts, eight of the most diverse areas were studied and it was revealed that in places where the majority of the population is not white, the majority of officers are. This can be an issue because the police are supposed to make citizens feel safe and protected, but many feel as though they are being racially profiled by the predominantly white force. This creates a lack of trust in authorities by the people. Many of these types of concerns stem from the fact that people believe that the police department should be a representation of the people in the town or city. It is believed that a largely white law enforcement agency does not accurately speak for a racially and culturally diverse area.

While the number of non-white members if the police force is growing quickly, the ratio of white to non-white officers is still no where close to equal. In an effort to make citizens more comfortable, officers are learning other languages such a spanish in order to relate to the people they govern. Many officers in very racially and culturally diverse communities are doing other things in order to show residents that they are making an effort to build inter- racial relationships. These things include visiting businesses frequented primarily by a certain race, and opening conversations about a future in law enforcement with young minority children and teenagers. They do these things in hopes that these children will grow up and want to become police officers, so that in the not so distant future, the large gap between the number of minority citizens and number of minority officers will be much smaller or even non-existent.

This is an article run by the Boston Globe describing the research and efforts of officers in diverse cities to create relationships with minority citizens.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/09/01/massachusetts-police-forces-lag-racial-diversity/RnEIJW5TuVki4ndotvl2GK/story.html