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Inciting crowds in the courts (15)
Prosecutors charged thirteen of those individuals with riot, leaving only two charged with disorderly conduct, one of whom was Margaret Mitchell. That was a smaller proportion who faced that lesser charge than of those arrested for any other offense. There is no clear evidence to indicate if the relative lack of cases in which prosecutors reduced the charge to disorderly conduct resulted from police gathering better evidence to support the charges than existed for other offenses or from magistrates' tendency to treat those accused of riot more harshly. In Margaret Mitchell's widely reported case, her arrest for riot appeared to be a response to crowds reacting to her screams when police began pushing people out of Kress' store. While some accounts had Mitchell urge others in the store to demand police free Rivera, most reports simply had her calling out that the boy had been injured. Neither of those actions amounted to calling for acts of force and violence, as the definition of riot required, leading to the charge against her being reduced to disorderly conduct. Magistrate Renaud convicted her, but determined that she had not intended to incite the crowd, so imposed a sentence of only three days in the Workhouse or a fine of $10 (she paid the fine). There are no details of the charges against John Hawkins, the other individual arrested for rioting and convicted of disorderly conduct. The sentence of thirty days in the Workhouse Magistrate Renaud imposed on Hawkins was one of only five terms that long he imposed.
Renaud sent all thirteen of the others arrested for riot to the grand jury. While he sent a portion of those arrested for other offenses to the Court of Special Sessions, charged with misdemeanors, he determined that all this group should face felony charges. The grand jury did not see the cases in the same way. While it initially voted felony charges against Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators, the next day District Attorney Dodge had to amend the charges to a misdemeanor, unlawful assembly. New York law specified two felony forms of riot, one that did not apply to these men involving acts focused on public officers and the enforcement of the law, individuals armed with weapons or disguised, and one involving "acts of force and violence." In the case of Miller and the Young Liberators, there was no evidence that they called for violence. Following Doge's decision, all but one of the remaining cases of riot brought to the grand jury with a known outcome resulted in the same outcome, misdemeanor charges to be tried in the Court of Special Sessions. Six of the other men charged later — Leon Mauraine, James Pringle, David Smith, John Kennedy Jones, Bernard Smith, and Leroy Brown — allegedly called for windows to be broken, which would seem to fit the felony definition. However, the statute required that the offender "directs, advises, encourages or solicits" that violence, a direct connection lacking in those cases. Instead, the charges referred only to subsequent attacks on businesses occurring in the vicinity. The misdemeanor of unlawful assembly, by contrast, required only that an offender "threaten" an act. Claude Jones and William Ford allegedly called for attacks on police, but the charges against them made no reference to acts of violence against police, circumstances that appeared to fit the threats referred to in the definition of unlawful assembly better than the acts in the definition of riot. In the final case, John King allegedly refused to move on when ordered to by a police officer, circumstances that section 2093 of the statute defined as a misdemeanor form of riot and unlawful assembly. Magistrate Renaud appears to have made a mistake in not sending King directly to the Court of Special Sessions. The dismissal of the case against Bernard Smith likely was a result of a lack of evidence connecting his alleged calls to break windows with any violence. (The outcome of two cases is unknown.)
Judges in the Court of Special Sessions convicted six of those tried for riot, acquitting Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators. (The outcome of two trials is unknown.) However, they suspended the sentences of all six of those individuals, an outcome that suggested that they did not consider their actions merited significant punishment.