State v Mann: Moot Court Case

          In class, we reenacted another court case as a moot court case of the State v Mann Case about

whether or not Mann should be punished because he was "leasing" a slave from someone else and

while punishing her with a whipping, she tried to escape and he shot her in the back. The state

charged him with assault and he appealed saying that he was in the right with his actions.

          The first side to argue was the State and they made five

arguments as to why Mann should not be punished for shooting

the slave, Lydia. They first used quotes from the Bible showing

how religion was unsupportive of slavery. Second, they said that

Mann was committing the crime of attempted murder. The third

argument they used was the Law of Property, making the

argument that Lydia was not owned by Mann and just being

"leased" that he didn't have the right to treat her as his property

and shoot her. They just used the plain argument that slavery

itself was unconstitutional and that slavery should not be allowed in the first place so this shouldn't

have even happened. Their final argument was that non-slaving owning white's were being oppressed

because of those that were slave owning.

          Next up was the Mann team who was arguing that the two previous court cases' rulings

charging Mr. Mann should be overturned. Their first argument was stating the fact that legally in

North Carolina, slavery was allowed and slaves were to be considered the property of their owners.

They then added to this by saying that the law and even the Bible said that slaves were to obey their

masters and be submissive to them or they could be punished. They said that it was the slaves fall that

she was shot because if she had just obeyed her owner and not tried to escape, then he wouldn't have

had to shoot her. Since Mr. Mann had signed a contract with Lydia's actual owner when he leased her,

he was legally her owner for a year and therefore could punish her how he saw fit as his property.

And their final argument was that the slave could have escaped if he had not shot her and then their

contract would have been broken because he couldn't return her after the year was up and therefore

shooting her was better than letting her escape.
       

          The court ruled just like in real life in favor of Mann, taking the side of the law at the time in

North Carolina. In the real life court case, they ruled that inhumane punishment of slaves was legal

because they were property not people or citizens, legal protections for slaves weren't allowed, and

owner's of any kind of slaves could do anything necessary to make the slave obey them.