Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land piratePitts, J. R. S. (James Robert Soda)
History
Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land pirate
Pitts, J. R. S. (James Robert Soda)
Copeland, James, 1823-1857; Criminals -- Gulf States -- Biography
Scheumack, a resident of another State, goes to Mobile to prosecute
for libel, and Judge McKinstry grants him the writ accordingly. The
Sheriff is represented as returning the same to the effect that the
writ had been executed, and the defendant in jail on the 17th of
January, 1859. Again, the trial docket and the records show that four
bills were got against the defendant from the Grand Jury the November
term, 1858, marked cases numbers 61, 62, 63, 64, corresponding to which
are given the names of G. Y. Overall, C. F. Moulton, G. A. Cleaveland,
and S. S. Scheumack; and that the name of Scheumack disappeared
subsequently without any order being made or without any cause being
assigned for the same; and furthermore four appearance bonds given by
the defendant are found on file in the office. In these cases, there
is no record of any action being taken by either Governor of Alabama
or Mississippi, the reason for which, perhaps, may be accounted for by
the innovation and wrong being too great for Governors’ names to be
associated with on record.
Now, it is evident, from the affidavit of Scheumack, that he did not
get a bill at the time the other three did from the Grand Jury of 1858,
and it is equally evident that he never afterward got one; then why was
his case associated on the trial docket with the other three?
The writ executed and returned asserts the defendant to be in jail on
the 17th of January, 1859. What a farce! If the defendant was in jail
at that time, it so mysteriously happened that he never knew it. A
bond is found on file in the office given by the defendant to answer
the charge preferred by Scheumak. What a farce! If the defendant gave
such a bond, he never knew it—was never called on to sign it—never went
before any examining magistrate, nor never knew, until a few days ago,
that Scheumack had ever succeeded in any action of law against him.
Ye prosecutors, answer, if you can, how the records are made to show
that Scheumack got a bill from the Grand Jury of the November term,
1858, when his affidavit of January 17, 1859, shows conclusively that
he never got any such bill at all. Answer, if you can, how his name
so mysteriously disappeared from the trial docket without any order
being made, or without any cause being assigned for the same. Answer,
if you can, how the appearance bond relative to him and the defendant
is found on file in the office, when no such bond could possibly have
been given. Answer, if you can, how the defendant came to be in jail on
the 17th of January, 1859, when thousands positively know that such was
not the case. If “something rotten in Denmark” is not found here, it is
vain to seek from any other quarter.
CONCLUDING SKETCH OF THE TRIAL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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