State v. Mann Mock Trial

There are many different views of this court case and it was one of the most controversial court cases of its time. The dilemma was that John Mann was renting a slave (Lydia) and she tried to escape and John Mann shot her in the back as she was running away. The court fined Mann ten dollars by saying that he violated his rights as a slave owner but he believes that the court violated his rights.

The state's argument consisted of many main points such as the fact that John Mann committed a vandalism offense by shooting Lydia because it is not his slave and only the owner of the slave should be allowed to punish their slaves in the way that they see fit. In terms of morality, this was very wrong because he believes that he should not be punished by shooting somebody else's property while renting them.

John Mann argued many points such as that he had hired the slave so he had complete control over her so when she tried to escape he had just as much control as her real owner would he had all possession that he needed to do what he needed to do with his property. He stated that he told Lydia to stop running away and he said that he would only give her one warning and she didn't stop running. In his point of view, he thought that she should have known that disobeying would have led to a punishment.

After the court heard both sides of the argument they sided with Mann, the fine of ten dollars was dismissed. Even though this was wrong in many ways according to 1830 law he was not in the wrong.