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Cases in the Court of General Sessions (17)
Only five of those men went before a jury, all three arrested for assault and only two arrested for looting. Ten men arrested for looting accepted plea bargains offered by prosecutors and two had the charges against them dismissed by a judge. Only James Hughes was convicted by a jury, of assault. Arnold Ford accepted a plea bargain offered during his trial for looting. Juries acquitted the other two men charged with assault, Isaac Daniels and Paul Boyett, and a judge directed the acquittal of Joseph Moore. The conviction rate (12 of 17, 70%) was lower than the rates in both the Magistrates courts and the Court of Special Sessions.
Eleven men pled guilty to misdemeanor charges, seven to petit larceny and three to unlawful entry. Those offenses suggest different gaps in the evidence against the men: the charge of petit larceny did not require evidence of breaking into a business only of taking merchandise, while the charge of unlawful entry did not require evidence of taking merchandise circumstances only of entering a business. The consequences of both pleas, however, were the same, a sentence of up to one year of imprisonment. Edward Larry entered the final guilty plea, to the charge of attempted grand larceny, rather than face trial on a charge of robbery. - when did they plead = several in first week - NB several recant, including Ford = questions about their legal representation (did any of those with Black lawyers plead??)
trials came later, which perhaps contributed to the lack of newspaper stories about proceedings that offered the most extensive legal examination of events in the disorder.
Convictions of men charged with felonies did not result in sentences significantly different than those imposed on those charged with misdemeanors. Apart from the three men whose sentences judges suspended [compare proportion of suspended with lower courts], all those sentenced in the Court of General Sessions received terms of at least three months in the workhouse. Those terms were at the upper range of those imposed in the lower courts. At the same time, only two men, Edward Larry and Arnold Ford, were sentenced to more than six months imprisonment: [details]