On this day in ...... 1906, judgment was issued following the only criminal trial ever conducted by the Supreme Court of the United States. In the case, United States v. Shipp, a sheriff and his deputy, plus 4 members of a lynch mob, were convicted of criminal contempt arising out of the killing of "an almost certainly innocent black man" in Chattanooga, Tennessee, hours after the town learned that the Court had stayed the man's scheduled execution following conviction for capital rape. Trial took place in the Court's former headquarters, the old Senate chamber above right. (photo credit) The tragic story was told in this recent ABA Journal article.
(Prior December 24 posts are here, here, and here.)
