Only once in its history has the United States Supreme Court conducted a criminal trial. The trial, taking place in both Tennessee and the District of Columbia in 1907 and 1908, resulted in the conviction of a sheriff, a deputy sheriff, and four members of a Chattanooga lynch mob. Outraged justices ordered the trial on criminal contempt charges after an almost certainly innocent black man, having been convicted of raping a white woman, was lynched less than a day after word reached Chattanooga that his scheduled execution had been stayed by the U. S. Supreme Court.

The trial of Joseph F. Shipp et al. is a story of tragedy and heroism that had been all but forgotten until Mark Curriden, a Dallas reporter, and Leroy Phillips, Jr., a Chattanooga attorney, published their 1999 book, Contempt of Court: The Turn-of-the-Century Lynching that Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism. Now, with the success of Contempt of Court--and a movie based on the book in the planning process--, it appears that the Shipp trial may assume its rightful place as one of the famous trials in American history.

INVESTIGATION OF THE RAPE OF NEVADA TAYLOR

The Shipp trial has its roots in a rape that took place on a dark January evening in 1906 the St. Elmo district of Chattanooga. A blond and beautiful twenty-one-year old named Nevada Taylor left her bookkeeping job in downtown Chattanooga about 6:00 p. m. on Monday, January 23. She boarded an electric trolley for the twenty-minute ride to the station near the base of Lookout Mountain. Stepping off the trolley at the station near 35th street, Taylor began the short walk to her home, a cottage in Forest Hills Cemetery where her father was the groundskeeper. As she approached the cemetery gate, she felt her throat grabbed from behind and a voice say, If you scream, I will kill you. The attack--which left Taylor unconscious--lasted only ten minutes.

Taylor regained consciousness, walked the one hundred yards to her home, and told her father of the attack. Taylor's father called Sheriff Shipp, who gathered bloodhounds and deputies, then rushed off in a horse-drawn carriage to Taylor's home. As Shipp consoled William Taylor, a doctor arrived to examine his daughter. After completing his investigation, the doctor reported the heartbreaking news: Nevada had been raped.

Shipp asked Taylor what she could remember of the attack. She couldn't recall much, but told the Sheriff was a little below average height, had muscular arms, and wore a black outfit and a hat, and had a soft, kind voice. Shipp asked, Was the man white or Negro? Taylor answered that she wasn't sure--she hadn't gotten a good look at him--, then said she thought he was black.

The pressure to make an arrest was intense. Shipp publicly announced an award of $50 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Taylor's attacker. Taylor's employer added $50 more, then the Governor put of another $200. With additional contributions from St. Elmo are residents the reward pot grew to $375--a very substantial sum in 1906.

It took three days for the Shipp to make an arrest. An investigation of the crime scene shortly after the rape turned up a black leather strap that perfectly matched red streaks around Taylor's neck. On Thursday, Will Hixon, a man who worked at a medicine company near the cemetery reported that he had seen a black man twirling a leather strap around his finger shortly before 6 p.m. on the evening of the rape. Hixon called Shipp later to say that he had just seen that same black man walking north toward town with a tall black man. Finding the tall black man alone, Shipp learned that his companion--and now prime suspect--was a drifter and sometimes carpenter named Ed Johnson. Within hours, Shipp spotted Johnson ri

ding on the back of an ice wagon. Johnson was handcuffed, brought to jail, and identified by Hixon as the man he had seen with the strap by St. Elmo station.

Word of Johnson's arrest spread quickly. That evening a large crowd--many carrying guns--gathered in front of the Hamilton County Jail. Bullets were fired into the sky. Nevada Taylor's younger brother adds fuel to the fire in a brief speech he delivers to the mob: The time for justice and punishment has come. We want the Negro. He must be punished for what he did to my sister. Soon one member of the mob stepped forward to tell Captain George Brown, second in command at the jail, that he would allow five minutes for someone to turn over the keys or he would lead a violent assault on the jail. No keys were delivered. Leaders of the mob grabbed a steel post and began ramming it against the front door. Others in the mob took over the electric plant, throwing the jail into darkness. Men stole sledgehammers from a nearby blacksmith shop and started working on hinges of the heavy door.

The jail sustained heavy damage from the attack, but there was to be no lynching of Ed Johnson--at least not yet. Deputies and members of Troop B of the National Guard--ordered to the scene by Governor Cox--arrived at the jail. A group of deputies succeeded in grabbing away the sledgehammers. Minutes later, Judge Samuel McReynolds showed up. The jury is in, Judge, we find him guilty and sentence him to hang by the neck until dead, one man in the crowd announces. McReynolds replied, Go home. Then the judge told the crowd that the man they were looking for was not in the jail, that he had been sent to Knoxville a few hours earlier. (In fact, Johnson had been sent to Nashville.) McReynolds offered to let five men from the disbelieving crowd inspect the jail: See for yourself he is not there. After a cell-by-cell search, the five chosen men told the crowd that the judge was right: Johnson was gone.

Nevada Taylor traveled to Nashville the next day and identified--though none too certainly--Johnson as her attacker. That same day, Judge McReynolds convened a grand jury. McReynolds told the grand jurors that Such outrages as this must have the immediate attention of the law. The Johnson case was on a fast track. Hamilton County District Attorney Matt Whitaker persuaded the grand jury to return an indictment in less than two hours. The next morning, Judge McReynolds appointed three local attorneys to represent Johnson in his upcoming trial: Lewis Shepperd (Chattanooga's most prominent defense attorney), W. G. M. Thomas, and Robert Cameron. McReynolds told the lawyers that the Johnson trial could begin in less than a week. For many in Chattanooga, even that was too long to wait. Some vented their frustrations by threatening Johnson's lawyers. W. G. M. Thomas awoke one evening to the sound of rocks crashing through his windows.

ED JOHNSON TRIAL AND APPEALS

The Johnson trial opened on Tuesday, February 6. The first prosecution witness was Nevada Taylor. Taylor described the attack and identified the leather strap used by her assailant. Prosecutor Whitaker then asked Taylor if the man who attacked her was present in the courtroom. I believe he is the man, said Taylor, pointing to Ed Johnson. After testimony was given by the doctor who examined Taylor, Whitaker called Will Hixon to the stand. Hixon told jurors that he saw the defendant with a strap in his hand...near the scene of the crime. Hixon claimed Johnson's face was illuminated by two electric cars passing Cemetery Station: I saw his face well and could not be mistaken in it. Sheriff Shipp testified next, recounting his investigation and the events leading to Johnson's arrest. Shipp testified that at the sheriff's office in Nashville, Johnson raised his voice to a higher pitch in attempt to prevent Taylo

r from identifying her as the attacker. Two of Shipp's deputies were called for brief testimony, then Whitaker announced, The state rests.

The first witness for the defense was Ed Johnson. Speaking in a strange voice, grasping the arms of the witness chair with his hands, Johnson strongly denied having attacked Nevada Taylor. Johnson said he spent the evening of January 23 working as a pool room porter at the Last Chance Saloon, arriving around 4:30 and staying until about 10:00. Thirteen witnesses followed Johnson to the stand, each swearing that he had seen Johnson at the Last Chance around the time he was allegedly in a cemetery raping Nevada Taylor. Then the defense moved on to an attack on the credibility of Will Hixon. Harvey McConnell, described by papers as a respected old-time Negro, testified that two days after the rape, Hixon had asked him about a black man doing some roofing work at a church in St. Elmo.
McConnell said Hixon asked him the man's name. When McConnell told him the man was Ed Johnson, Hixon asked him for a physical description of Johnson. Lewis Shepherd then called his co-counsel, W. G. M. Thomas, to the stand to recount a meeting he arranged between Hixon and McConnell. According to Thomas, when McConnell repeated the same story we heard here today to Hixon, Hixon hung his head very low and uttered no word of denial.

The most dramatic event of the Johnson trial occurred on its third and last day. At the request of jurors, Nevada Taylor was recalled to the stand. Juror J. L. Wrenn stood and asked Taylor, Miss Taylor, can you state positively that this Negro is the one who assaulted you? Taylor answered, I will not swear he is the man, but I believe he is the Negro who assaulted me. Wrenn, still not satisfied, asked again: In God's name, Miss Taylor, tell us positively--is that the guilty Negro? Can you say it? Can you swear it? With tears streaming down her face and in a quivering voice, Taylor replied, Li

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