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Dec. 4, 2023 - Where There's Woke - Thomas Smith
58:58
WTW22: The Defendants Testify

Part 3 of We Shouldn't Name Anything for John Stennis   At long last, we hear the real story from the defendants themselves. And we meet Satan.   Content warning: this episodes contains mention of horrendous racial violence.   Feel free to email us at lydia@seriouspod.com or thomas@seriouspod.com! Please pretty please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/wherethereswoke!

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Time Text
What's so scary about the woke mob?
How often you just don't see them coming.
Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.
Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down.
The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.
Instead of go-go boots, the seductress Green M&M will now wear sneakers.
Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
I'm Thomas Smith.
That over there is Lydia, coincidentally with the same last name of Smith.
I am.
How are you doing?
I am doing okay and excited to see where we go from here and also a little horrified and hesitant.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, there's, there's nothing to be excited about whatsoever other than finally getting to kind of tell the story of working on for a month.
All this is new to me.
He hasn't spoiled anything.
Oh yeah, we should have said that from the outset.
I just frequently just say like, I can't fucking believe this.
And then I don't tell anyone.
It's been over a month that I've been waiting to find out what the heck is going on here.
So Lydia's the listener along with you all.
Yep.
I guess I'll say, too, this is now a part three, so make sure you've heard the other two parts.
When we last left off, we allowed the state to rest its case.
According to the state, just to summarize, three suspects all confessed, they felt better about having told the truth, got it off their chest, you know?
I confess to the murder.
We're ready to be hanged for it, for some reason.
The sheriff's deputy brother agreed.
The sheriff's brother, yeah.
Oh, it was the sheriff?
Okay.
The sheriff's brother agreed.
The reverend agreed.
The reverend, man of the cloth.
Called them a slur and agreed, yeah.
Yeah, so that's where we were.
And stupid me, I was thinking, ah, that's how they did it.
That's how the chorus confessions might have gotten through because, you know, there was kind of some interesting procedural stuff there that, you know, the jury wasn't there for the parts that mattered, maybe.
And then also the judge seemed to have not really much patience for it.
So, damn, that's how it happened.
And then I, you know, read the rest of the transcript.
So, first up for the defense is defendant Ed Brown.
And I'm thinking, well shit, are they gonna not let him talk?
You know, like, how's this gonna go?
Like, how do they- I know they get fucked over, but I'm like, how do they get fucked over?
You know, like, is it just one of those things where, like, because the judge ruled that the confessions are fine, like, is he not allowed to talk about it or something?
Nope!
So, Ed Brown is 30 years old, married, Has three kids.
All the defendants are married, actually.
All three.
One of them doesn't have kids, but the other two do.
Which just makes it more depressing.
Yeah.
Ages 5, 10, and 13.
And testimony starts normal enough, like, did you kill the guy?
No.
Like, here's what happened.
I was asleep.
Yeah.
And also he talks about having had a good relationship, as I said, Ed Brown.
By all accounts seem to have a good relationship with this guy.
Not sure if the guy sucked or not.
I would put big money on it, but I don't know.
He testifies that they had a fine relationship and there seemed to be some trust there and all that.
And he basically has a bit of an alibi in that he was at home.
Also, he was with Yank and some other people that we don't need to get into.
So he has kind of an alibi and they don't end up, for some reason, they don't end up talking to any other of the alibi people, but their wives.
I was just going to ask, you know, at home, presumably with his wife and his three young children, that could have also testified to his whereabouts.
So the wives all testify, but not really anybody else.
It's kind of weird.
So then we get to this question.
You heard Mr. Alcock and the sheriff of Lauderdale County, Mr. Stevens, and Preacher Stevens, Testify about the confession you made in Meridian in the jail, saying that you participated in this killing.
Tell the jury whether or not you told the truth at that time.
No sir, I didn't tell the truth.
Why did you tell something that was not true?
Mr. Cliff called me out of the jail Sunday evening.
Who did?
Mr. Cliff Dial.
This is me stepping aside, sorry.
You know how often, I think I've said this, I think it's something we have to teach our kids a little bit, like there's no villains in real life, you know, like it's not Lord of the Rings and you got like Sauron, he's like this pure evil thing and blah, blah, blah.
Like you're kind of watching like kids movies and it's like, yeah, I mean, that's not very real.
Someone's not usually just, Yeah, totally evil for no reason.
I think I found a major exception to that, and that is Cliff Dial.
This is...
The worst piece of shit I think I've ever encountered in anything ever.
This guy fucking was evil.
And okay, you got Hitler, you got mass murders, you know, you got other evil, but this, I think what's more disturbing is this guy was evil, but just was fine in society.
Like he was, it's not that he hid his evil, it's that the kind of evil he was was okay to white society back then, and He was in a position of general esteem, but was just fucking, like, it's just sickening, this guy, this Cliff Dial.
So, okay, back into this testimony.
Who did?
Mr. Cliff Dial, he told me to come out here.
Oh, I gotta re-up the content note for every single part in this series.
For racial fucking horrendous violence and stuff against black people, so.
Mm-hmm.
He told me to come out here that he had heard that I told that I killed Mr. Raymond.
I come out of the jailhouse and I said, I declare I didn't kill Mr. Raymond.
He said, come on in here and pull your clothes off.
I'm going to get you.
I said to the last that I didn't kill him.
There was two more fellows about like that there and they was whipping me.
They had me behind across chairs kind of like that.
I said I didn't kill him and they put it on him again and they hit so hard I had to say, yes, sir.
Mr. Cliff said, give it to me and I will get it.
He took it and it had two buckles on the end.
They stripped me naked and bent me over a chair and I just had to say it.
I couldn't help it.
They whipped you hard there?
Yes, sir.
I will show you.
There are places all the way up there.
Did you bleed any?
Did I bleed?
I sure did.
How did you tell them about the light and the lamp and such things as that?
You know, asking like, how do you, you know, all the details of the crime and all that.
He answered, they whipped me so hard and I said I didn't know anything about them.
And they put me down the third trip and said, ain't that so?
He said, what about the lamp?
And I said, I reckon Henry Shields done that.
They said, you know more than that.
They put me down again and they whipped me so bad I couldn't sleep that night.
Oh my God.
When did this whipping take place?
Sunday evening.
They whipped that boy first and then they told me to come on out.
When Mr. Alcock and Mr. Stevens and his brother and some other gentlemen were talking to you on Monday night, did they threaten you on that night?
No, sir, I was scared because Mr. Cliff said I had better tell it like I told him.
I was scared.
When did he tell you that?
When he was whipping me and after I got up.
He told you what?
That I had better not get off what I had told him.
That's the reason you told Mr. Adcock what you did?
Yes, sir, that's the reason.
If you could see all the places, you would say a train didn't move any lighter.
You told these gentlemen what you told Mr. Cliff on Sunday when he was whipping you.
Yes, sir.
You tell the jury and court that that is the reason that you told it, because of what Mr. Cliff Dial said to you.
Yes, sir.
So yeah, no, the jury heard all that.
The jury wasn't like out or anything.
Yeah.
Nothing excluded.
Heard it in detail, too, because the judge didn't even hear all that stuff.
Yep.
There's so much more.
And who's Cliff Dial exactly?
Is he like a warden?
Who's Cliff Dial?
That's a funny question because he was kind of introduced initially as a sheriff's deputy.
OK.
I was like, OK, well, he's a sheriff's deputy.
And that sets up the key dynamic, which is evil, racist, torture cop, good cop.
Because they have him do all the awful fucking physical abuse and then once they get the actual confession, they've sort of laundered it by having just the Reverend and his brother Sheriff come in and say, oh, you just make sure to tell me the truth.
Don't, you know, you're safe here.
Meanwhile, this fucking monster of a person, this demon, has threatened him, saying, this is gonna happen again if you don't do it.
They're just gonna beat a person until he's the guilty murderer.
Yeah.
What is Ed Brown supposed to do?
What is he supposed to do?
What are any of these...
Poor black men supposed to do it.
It's just so inconceivable.
But the reason I said it was interesting about Cliff Dial is actually Cliff Dial was just a dude.
Because I came across it in something else that holy shit, I'm another several hours away from being able to tell you that I just found tonight.
Oh, is this?
Yeah.
I think he was just deputized.
Oh my god.
Yeah, I didn't fucking think about that.
A civilian?
Yeah, I forgot about that concept.
Because to me, that's so fucking stupid.
But yeah, he's in the transcript as a sheriff's deputy.
I'm like, okay, that makes sense.
He's got an underling.
Like, literally.
No.
Wow.
I think he's just a fucking guy.
I'm almost certain.
Unless he, like, retired shortly after this and became just a guy.
But I don't think so.
He was just told by the sheriff like, hey, I deputize you to do certain things.
OK, and then the sheriff now is evil, like literally evil, because the comments that he was making to these men were like, we're here, we're protecting you from everything that's out there.
And if he deputized like a civilian outside to bring in and do those things to them, that's monstrous.
I think it's beyond obvious that the sheriff's knew what was going on.
It's not obvious that he specifically deputized Dial to do these beatings, but like fucking probably, you know?
1930, whatever.
For all we know, he deputized them to like go arrest them, which is kind of what happened, you know?
But yeah, I mean, fucking they're all the same piece of shit.
They're all horrible, racist pieces of shit.
And so.
Here's the thing, going from here, there's, God, there's so much more, but at this point, it's actually plausible, and it's actually backed by some other evidence, that this could be the first that Stennis, remember Stennis, what this is about, kind of?
Yeah.
John Stennis, the fucking prosecutor.
It's actually kind of likely that this is the first Stennis is hearing about this.
It's not 100%, but like, it seems like this kind of took him a little bit by surprise.
Okay.
And so you might think, well shit, if this is the first time he's hearing about this, you're a prosecutor and you just hear one of your defendants say he was literally tortured into a confession.
Yeah.
What do you do at that point?
Because I think that it would be like, your honor, I'd fucking mistrial.
I or something.
I don't.
Yeah.
Being the representative of the state, right?
Yeah.
You're like, okay.
Let's pause.
This does, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer, I don't know what the procedure is there, but I would think it would be like, can we have a fucking recess?
Yeah.
And then you talk to the judge and you're like, I didn't know that these people apparently beat this guy and all three of them into this.
Yeah.
I need to stop so that I can see if, you know, there's all the kinds of like double jeopardy concerns and all that bullshit, but like, Something other than nothing, I guess, would be what I would expect him to do.
But what did John Stennis, giant of the Senate, the most noble man, amazing guy ever, we name a ship and a space fucking thing after, what did he do?
Well, after some more, a little bit more testimony, not much actually, John Stennis cross-examines Ed Brown.
And I wish that I could just read you this whole thing because when I first read this, my mind was just like, I can't believe it.
To say that he badgered this guy is an understatement.
He just goes on and on.
Let me read a little bit of it.
Okay.
You heard Mr. Adcock's testimony.
It was misprinted as Alcock some places, that's why I said that.
The transcript is rough, sorry, but I think it's Adcock.
You heard Mr. Adcock's testimony.
Yes, sir.
You heard about what the other two men said you told them.
Yes, sir.
They told it right, didn't they?
I told it because Mr. Dial had done beat me so.
I know that.
I know you say that's why, but you did tell them just what they said.
Answer, yes, sir.
After he got through beating me, he told me I better say what I said to him.
But is it true that you told Mr. Adcock and these other gentlemen on Monday night just what they said you told them?
Asking the same question now for the third time.
Are you talking about when this man got through whipping me?
No, on Monday night when Mr. Adcock and the two gentlemen who were on the stand there, you told them just what Mr. Adcock told here on the stand.
Yes, sir, I told them because I was scared.
Mr. Adcock told a while ago just exactly what you told him in the jail there.
Yes, sir, the reason I did tell it was because Mr. Cliff had beat me so.
And after you got through, you told Mr. Adcock that you felt better.
Yes, sir, but a man will say anything when he is beat up like that.
When Mr. Adcock first talked to you that night, you didn't tell him about it?
No, sir.
He said a while ago that when he talked to you alone that night, you wouldn't tell at all, but when all three were together, you told every bit.
Mr. Cliff told me I better tell it.
When you first talked to Mr. Adcock, you didn't tell at all?
Yes sir, I told them all.
And it just goes on forever.
And he's basically like this badgering fucking idiot just saying, but you told them, but you told them, but you told them the truth.
Was it the truth then?
But you told them then.
But isn't that what you told them?
I decided to copy and paste it and search it.
There's 145 questions in this cross-examination.
Oh my gosh.
It's the longest part of the entire trial.
Wow.
So he just learns that this poor black man was fucking beaten into a confession.
And his response is to say, oh, I know what I'll do.
I will badger this guy for a fucking hour saying, but then why did you say that you did it?
Why'd you do it?
Why'd you say that you did it?
Why'd you say that?
He asks the same question forever.
If that's the state's only part of their case is the testimony of those who already spoke, then he's just trying to save the credibility of the testimony that's been given by those sheriffs, right?
So that's probably all that's in his mind is like, oh my God, I have to like save my side of this and who cares what this person went through because I don't give a shit because I'm a racist.
Yeah.
And the best you could try to say for any of these fucking racists involved is that they just, which is still what you say about police nowadays when they fucking do this is you're like, well, they think the guy's guilty.
So that's what justifies.
And it's like, yeah, okay, sure.
Why do you think he's guilty?
Cause he's black.
Oh, okay.
There it is.
So you're just racist.
Remember when his granddaughter was like, but my grandpa wasn't, he was a man of his time.
I was going to bring that back actually.
I've just been thinking about that this whole time.
Like, oh God.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
I mean, his granddaughter was, well, fucking, she was not that far away from this.
Yeah.
So I've scrolled down a bit, and I'm just going to read this to give an indication of kind of how this went.
Now his line of questioning is like, well, where did all these details come from, essentially?
And so he's like, everything about the lamp chimney, you told that?
Yes, sir, the way they told me to tell it.
You told him the way you went in the side door.
He made me tell all that.
Who did?
Mr. Cliff, when he was whipping me.
Did Mr. Cliff make you say that you had a foot axe?
He said, what did you hit him with?
And I said, nothing.
He said, what did you hit him with or I'll beat you to death?
And I said, a stick.
He said, no.
And I said, a foot axe.
Yeah, so that's just indicating how this went.
Like, according to these defendants, they just beat them until they said the right things.
They guessed until they, you know, made them happy.
That was like, uh, making a murder.
Yeah, well, and what's interesting about the foot axe thing is they never found a foot axe.
It's a different kind of axe, I guess.
They actually never found one.
So I guess that was a good enough answer for Mr. Cliff Dial, but it actually might not have been the real answer.
I think they end up saying like, oh, he threw it down a well or something.
It's like, okay.
Sure.
All right.
Convenient.
Yeah.
But then he says right after this, the night Mr. Adcock was there, Mr. Dial wasn't there.
No, sir.
You hadn't seen him anymore after he whipped you.
Yes, sir, but I don't reckon he's seen me.
I can't emphasize enough how much he's doing the same.
Like, at a certain point, couldn't you object and be like, asked and answered?
I mean, maybe that's fucking new legal technology, but he's still going off.
Listen to this.
When I read that paper to you yesterday, you said you killed him, didn't you?
I guess that must be the guilty plea, probably.
Yes, sir, but that was on account of that man.
Didn't you see Mr. Adcock this morning and tell them that what you told him in the jail was the truth?
I done that because Mr. Cliff said he would beat me and I was scared.
Aren't you still scared of Mr. Cliff?
As in, like, well, then why?
Yeah, why aren't you too scared to tell the truth now?
And he says, yes, sir, but I'm going to tell the truth.
I ain't never harmed him.
That is what you told Mr. Adcock down there in the jail, that you were going to tell the truth.
Yes, sir.
After he scared me, after Mr. Cliff scared me, like he just has to say it a hundred thousand.
It keeps going on and on and on and on.
It's still going.
145 questions.
I mean, I've scrolled all the way down pages now and, uh, it's still, still going.
Nuts.
Maybe Stennis just didn't have any other ideas for questions.
Yeah.
One thing I thought was interesting coming to the end, here's about his arrest.
They arrested you not long after they found the body?
Yes, sir.
I come up there and in about 15 or 20 minutes, Mr. Cliff throwed a pump gun on me.
Was that at the house?
Yes, sir.
I was out from the house a piece.
Wow.
So 15, 20 minutes.
I don't know exactly how much time that means from, you know, the literal discovery of the body.
I think, I feel like Ed Brown is saying 15, 20 minutes after he came up there, which wasn't right when they found the body, but either way, I don't know how much fucking detective work they did in that time.
Yeah.
Let me just read the end of this, because again, it's still the same question.
I'm surprised the judge didn't intervene.
Go like, we got it, man.
We fucking got it.
And you say you're afraid of Mr. Dial?
Yes, sir.
Which do you think would be worse, to have Mr. Dial there and be afraid of him, or confess to killing Mr. Stewart?
I didn't kill Mr. Stewart.
You knew that you were confessing to killing him?
No, sir.
You knew what it meant when you said you helped kill him?
I was telling a tale when I spoke that.
Didn't you know it would hang you when you told them that you killed them?
Yes, sir.
But you went on and told that Monday night.
Yes, sir.
I was scared because he beat me so.
And you told it again today.
I was still scared.
Are you scared now?
Yes, sir.
That's the end.
And then on redirect by Clark, again, the one kind of good lawyer.
So on redirect, Clark says, you say the jailer in Meridian told you the man would get you again.
Yes, sir.
The boy that works there come up there and I told him I didn't touch the man and I would die on that.
Mr. McGee, the jailer, told you They would get you again if you denied it.
Yes, sir.
He brought the boy up there to see if I denied it.
Where was Mr. McGee when they whipped you that Sunday afternoon?
I didn't see him to know him when they whipped me.
So the point of that was they had this fucking jailer be like the threatening, you know, the guy in the fucking background doing the, you know, cause like, yeah, sure.
Cliff Dial wasn't there when the sheriff took the confession.
But the jailer was.
So it's like, the jailer was there both times.
The jailer's like, hey, I'm going to be watching you, essentially.
So you better make sure you tell this story the same.
So that's Ed Brown.
And then next is Henry Shields.
Now, this one is interesting.
By interesting, I mean, like, obviously the main thrust of this is that some fucking white racist tortured some black people into being guilty.
Like, that's obviously your... But in terms of, like, just for pure curiosity, I just can't help wondering, like, were any of them involved or not?
Because, like, somebody did kill the guy.
Yeah.
I mean, maybe it's just some white guy that is like, oh, I can just commit murder because there's so much racism, I'll never be suspected ever.
Yeah.
Honestly, it's like a superpower that white murders had back then, probably.
But I don't know.
This Henry Shields, in his testimony, he talks about his alibi, which is similar.
It's that he was at home.
He's the one who doesn't have any kids.
And he tells a weird story.
He left home that night and he says that it's because his woman was cheating on him or something.
There's a weird, there's a sense in which like Henry Shields was the one who insisted he didn't do anything.
Right.
I was just going to clarify that.
But weirdly, he's the one that I actually, if I had to guess, if one of them was involved, I would actually guess it was him.
Interesting.
Because he tells a story about how he went to sleep and then his wife, you know, he wasn't quite asleep, but his wife thought he was, so she got up and then he got up and he saw there was this guy, Bob Gross, running from around the house and through the yard, essentially.
And then he got an axe and threatened her with it.
And they said, well, I didn't hit her with it, but like, When she took the axe it like hit her in the leg or something and so it's kind of weird that you've got like well he's he has a story for why he left his house yet he also has a story involving an axe yeah and kind of justifying that there's blood on it you know blood yeah and so it's like kind of like Hmm, I don't know, you know, like maybe I don't know.
Maybe there's something there, which is weird because he denies it the most.
On the other hand, who fucking knows?
And it could be entirely coincidence.
I mean, I don't imagine that a domestic dispute at that time was that uncommon, to be honest.
With an ax seems pretty intense, but yeah.
But the way she tells, so she later corroborates it.
Interesting.
But what's weird is that, like, there's also another instance where when they first arrest him, he says some stuff about how he tried to shoot this Bob guy.
And he, you know, like, he seems like he's a little bit in his day.
So I don't know.
It's a, it's a weird thing.
And they say they never found this Bob guy and they don't, you know, so.
But who the fuck knows?
Just from a curiosity standpoint, I wonder if it was him.
But also, obviously, that's not the point.
And who gives a shit?
But just for pure whodunit curiosity.
Yeah, for that true crime angle.
But on the other hand, I mean, look at all the detail in his story.
And who knows?
You know, like maybe if he was lying, he's good at coming up with a lot of detail.
Or maybe he's not fucking lying at all.
I don't know.
Because he says, Well, where did you go then?
Yes, and then he says, I went to my mother-in-law's.
I left there and I went to Oscars to spend the night.
I left there about five o'clock and went on to scuba.
I first went to Mr. James Boyd's.
I met this boy and he said Mr. Boyd was going to Electric Mills and that Daisy was going with him.
I turned in at his house and asked this girl if I could go and she said he had a load.
I went on, like he's mentioning 47 people that could falsify his story.
So I don't know.
I don't fucking know.
But anyway, his statement is that like he was so upset with his wife that he wanted to leave the country or something.
I don't know if that's exaggeration because I don't know how he would feel like they had very little means to actually go anywhere back then.
But and then they started asking about his arrest.
And so he says, were you arrested in Meridian?
Yes, sir.
When were you arrested?
I was arrested Saturday evening.
I guess about three o'clock.
Were you put in jail?
Yes, sir.
Were you in jail on Sunday?
Yes, sir.
Who came to see you there on Sunday?
A lot of people come there.
there.
Did you have any trouble there Sunday evening?
Yes, sir.
What kind?
A whipping spell.
Mr. Cliff tore me up.
Tell us about that.
Yes, sir.
Let me start back at the first when they arrested me.
Mr. Cliff Dial and Mr. Poole, that big fellow there, and another fellow come there.
Mr. Cliff and Mr. Poole come in the front door, and this other fellow come in on the back, and they asked me what I was doing down here.
I said that me and my old lady got into it.
He He said, No, you didn't.
You helped kill Mr. Stewart.
And I said, No, sir.
I stuck to it as long as Mr. Poole was with me.
Mr. Poole carried me on to jail and give me to the jailer.
And he left.
And Mr. Cliff Dial and them come back that evening and whip me.
First, I tried to tell the truth, but he wouldn't let me.
He said, No, you ain't told the truth.
And I tried to stick to it.
He whipped me so hard.
I had to tell him something.
He said, Ed Brown done told that you helped kill Mr. Raymond.
I said, no, if there's a God in heaven, I ain't had nothing against Mr. Raymond.
He could be at home walking around as far as I know.
But then he basically does the same thing that they did with Ed Brown, where it's like, well, when you told them that you took part in this thing, I will ask you to state whether or not you told the truth.
He says, no, sir.
I was made to tell what I did.
He sticks to that, kind of in the same way.
But this fucking Cliff Dial, he says he basically beat him like three times and the first two times he stuck to it and then on the third he was like, alright, I can't, you know, resist this anymore.
Then they go into the evidence and so all the physical evidence is from him.
So it's like that jumper that they thought had blood on it, the ax that they said had blood on it.
Hog hair or...
Yeah, that.
His hairy.
And his story for the blood on the jumper is, well, my mother-in-law gave my wife some meat and she wrapped it in that old jumper there.
And the wife corroborates that.
He says like, yeah, I didn't use it anymore.
So it's just been sitting there.
It's like, okay, maybe.
But he says it happened around Christmas, which is months ago.
But then again, I don't know why you would, like, if you were going to lie, I feel like you would say it happened more recently in case the blood was like fresh or whatever.
Yeah.
I don't want to dwell too much on it, but just because there's a bit of a interesting thing that happened when he was being fucking beaten, but you know, he asked him, why did you confess?
And he says, Mr. Cliff put me across a chair three times.
He put me across a chair and whipped me with a strop.
And I said, it was hurting.
I said, Mr. Cliff, I will tell the truth.
I wasn't in it.
He said, you ain't telling the truth.
He put me down the second time.
And I tried to tell him the same thing.
And Mr. Guy Jack said, he's telling the truth.
So the other white guy there.
And Mr. Cliff said I wasn't.
And so he keeps beating him and then he admits to it.
It's like, Jesus Christ.
Cliff Dial was like an evil piece of shit, a head and shoulders above other evil racist pieces of shit.
Crazy.
And so I want to read this part.
You told Mr. Adcock the same story the next day.
Yes, sir.
Why was that?
Mr. Cliff told me if I didn't tell Mr. Adcock and the other men, He was going to whip me again.
He said, Henry, if you don't tell them folks the same thing you told us, I will get meat again.
I had rather you all would kill me than let Mr. Cliff get me again.
And now, cross-examination.
Stannis did the same fucking thing again.
Instead of 145 questions, though, he only asked 65.
It's just constantly like, but you made that statement, but you made that statement, but here, I'll just read the beginning of it.
When you talked to Mr. Adcock, he told you didn't have to talk.
Yes, sir.
He told you that you didn't have to tell a thing.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Dial wasn't there then.
No, sir.
He told you that he wanted you to tell the truth.
Yes, sir.
He told you he wanted you to make a free statement.
Yes, sir.
He wasn't forcing you to say anything.
No, sir.
He told you that you were safe from danger then?
Yes, sir.
And that he was going to protect you?
Yes, sir.
Still, you went on and told what he said?
Yes, sir.
And you were telling the truth about it?
Yes, sir.
What you told- I think that was a mistake.
I think in the redirect he corrects that, but anyway.
What you told Mr. Adcock that Monday night was so?
No, sir, it wasn't.
What do you mean by saying it was and it wasn't?
What are you speaking about?
Mr. Adcock told you.
And now I imagine like they're in both of their like deep southern accents just got like incomprehensible to each other.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Mr. Adcock told you that he was going to protect you.
Yes, sir.
And he wasn't going to bother you.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Stevens told you the same thing.
I mean, it's just that it's like, oh, OK, well, they said they weren't going to hurt you.
Yeah, man.
What aren't you getting about this, Dennis?
Like either you suck or you're the dumbest fucking person in the world.
Like, you don't understand what's going on here.
65 questions of that same fucking thing.
And then yeah, on redirect, he's like, when you say you told the truth, do you mean that you were telling the truth?
And he just corrects that little thing.
He's like, no.
Now as I understand you, what you told Mr. Adcock wasn't true.
And he said, yes sir, that's right.
And then we get Yank Ellington and Yank is, what happened to Yank was, if you can believe it, even fucking worse.
Even worse.
Because Yank, for one, he is 20 years old, married and has two kids.
Two-year-old and a six-month-old baby.
He was the other one who was living on Stewart's place, but they didn't have as much contact.
There is allegedly, they try to introduce a motive of like, oh, he once ripped you off or something and I don't know where they get that information, but he denies it.
So his alibi, it's kind of similar.
No domestic dispute, but his alibi is like, yeah, I was home with the wife and kids and the mother-in-law.
He talks about like the work he was doing that morning.
Got some detail about that.
So the morning after the killing, I guess.
And then he says, Did you help kill him?
No, sir.
I didn't help.
I didn't know anything about he was dead.
When were you arrested?
Mr. Martin and them came and got me that night I was at home.
What night was that?
Friday night.
So remember it was, the guy was killed either Thursday night or Friday AM.
So Friday night.
So that's the order of things.
Ed was arrested like, you know, that afternoon right away.
And then this is the next thing that happened.
I think the reason I got a little confused is he wasn't actually arrested here, but he said he was, but here's what actually happened.
Friday night, they come and got me out of bed and carried me to the house.
Whenever they say carried, by the way, they mean like drove.
It's weird.
They say that every time, but it's like, that's I guess what they called it back then.
What house?
Mr. Raymond's.
They tied me up there with my hands together that way to a tree and whipped me.
Who tied you?
Mr. Martin.
Who was there in the crowd?
Mr. Martin and his boys and Mr. Hal Bird and Mr. Cliff.
Mr. Cliff Dial?
Yes, sir.
What did they do after they tied you?
They whipped me good.
Was that all?
They hung me twice.
They pulled me up to a limb twice.
What is the mark on your neck?
Note a visible fucking mark on his neck that the lawyer can just point to.
What is the mark on your neck?
That's where they pulled me up the limb twice.
Oh my god.
That was done with a rope?
Yes, sir.
They pulled you up twice on a limb?
Yes, sir.
Did it hurt you?
Yes, sir.
When they let you down, could you stand up?
Yes, sir.
How long did they keep you swinging there?
Not so long.
Did you ever tell them you knew anything about it that night?
No, sir, I didn't tell them nothing.
What did they do then?
This is the weird thing that happened.
So that night, for some reason, this mob grabs Yank Ellington.
And Cliff Dial is with them, but he actually saves Yank.
So he says, and this is, I mean, I would say that Cliff's making it up, except it doesn't make sense, and also Yank's wife ends up saying it too.
So I guess this really happened.
So the mob is obviously, they're fucking doing a lynching.
Yeah.
Really, really horrible.
Being strung up by your neck is like the one of the most painful things that you could possibly do.
After they do that twice, and he's still denying it, I guess Cliff, for fucking some reason, intervened and was like, all right, I don't think he did it.
And so Cliff stops them.
He actually stops the mob from killing him at that time.
And Yank goes home.
And so he wasn't actually arrested then.
That was kind of why I was confused, I think.
Right.
To him, what does it fucking matter?
That actually, I think, kind of makes clear how bullshit all this is.
He can't tell the difference between when a white mob is doing a fucking lynching on him and when the law is arresting him.
It's the same thing to him because that's the reality of this fucking horrible racist nightmare.
Yeah.
It's really interesting, actually, to think about that.
He considered it being arrested, but he wasn't really arrested until Sunday.
So then he got in bed and was obviously not in a good way, and then Saturday morning he went to his father-in-law's, and then the lawyer asked, who carried you to Meridian?
Again, meaning who, like, drove you there.
And he says, Mr. Cliff and Mr. Russell.
Mr. Russell who?
Mr. Russell, what stayed on that place, Mr. Russell Dudley.
What time did they take you to Meridian?
I don't know exactly what time, but it was pretty early.
Was it Saturday?
Yes, sir.
After dinner or before?
Before dinner, I think.
What did they tell you they were taking you that way for?
For safekeeping.
Did anybody bother you on the way?
After we got on the other side of Livingston, which is, I don't know if this matters or not, But that's, I believe, once they were in Alabama, so like, in a different state.
It seems to be deliberate that, like, they kind of drove them over state lines, but also it doesn't fucking matter, apparently, because Cliff Dial will beat anyone anywhere, so maybe that is a coincidence, I don't know.
But, they took me out and whipped me again, and told me, tell what I know about it.
"Who did?" "Mr. Cliff, what did you tell him?" "I had to tell him.
He asked who had the chisel and he said I had it.
I told him I didn't and he kept beating me until I had to say it.
"What else did you tell?
"Did you tell about Ed Brown and Henry Shields?" "Yes, sir." "Why did you tell that?
Did you tell because he was whipping you?" There's an objection probably leading or whatever.
"Tell why you told that." Because Mr. Cliff was beating me so hard, I had to tell it.
I told a story because I didn't know anything about Mr. Raymond's death.
So I just found that particularly weird and horrifying.
So Cliff Dial saved him from the mob and then like a day later, I don't know why, maybe because of some other information or something, he picks him up and then he beats him himself until he confesses.
It's just fucking these psychos.
Like, I don't know.
It's just... It's insane.
Yeah, and then basically the testimony goes kind of a similar way about the sheriff's and the confession and all that.
Sorry, quick question on Yank.
Was he picked up from his house before dinner, or?
It said it was his father-in-law's.
So he still wasn't even arrested and in jail at that point?
On the way to the jail, he beat him.
On the way to jail.
Meridian, got it.
And then he, yeah.
They're keeping him in Meridian jail so that they don't get lynched, essentially.
Right, right, right.
It's a little bit out of the way.
So cross-examination by Stennis.
I actually didn't count this one, but it actually looks longer than the last one.
So he's still doing the same thing, but I just wanted to read one little quote here.
Mr. Dial didn't do anything to you yesterday.
Well, no, sir, but I was still scared.
You came here today and after you had been in the courtroom about half the morning, Mr. Dial hadn't done anything to you?
No, sir.
You were never scared of Mr. Adcock?
Yes, sir.
I'm scared of all white people.
I just wanted to read that because like, Yeah, man.
I get it.
Yeah.
Jesus Christ.
Understandably.
How could you not?
Yeah.
And Stennis, who was so against the anti-lynching legislation.
Yeah, weird.
Weird.
But it's probably because of like a states' rights principled stand.
God.
States' rights to do what?
Lynchings.
Yeah.
So, court recessed after Yang's testimony.
And then what's weird is, Stennis comes in, and this is part of the reason why it's believed that Stennis didn't entirely know the confessions were shitty.
Now, it strikes me as not mattering at all, because what he did after knowing the confessions were tainted is worse.
Like, he made it worse.
So court recesses and then comes back.
Stennis says, well, we have new stuff we want to do.
You might wonder, can you just do that?
And the answer is no.
Like once the state rests its case, it rests its fucking case.
That's how it works.
So Clark objects.
He's like, the state has closed its case.
This is an unusual fucking thing.
Like, what are we doing?
It's a polite way of saying that.
Yeah.
case and Stennis, so the thing Stennis is trying to bring in is this fingerprint expert.
And Stennis says the district attorney states that the reason this testimony was not developed and available at the beginning of the trial was that the district attorney was reliably informed that all the defendants had fully confessed to their implication in the crime.
And the district attorney himself had arraigned all three defendants in open court and the defendants, Ed Brown and Yank Ellington, then and there entered pleas of guilty to the charge of murder.
And it wasn't considered necessary to develop the fingerprints.
And the state was therefore taken by surprise with the defense presented by the defendants.
And so that's what his reasoning is.
It's like, yeah, okay.
I didn't know I needed to do this for my case, which I don't know how the law normally works, but it still strikes me as like, well, yeah, but you closed your case.
Like, isn't that, if closing your case means anything, then it would mean like, well, but I changed my mind.
Then you can, you know, like.
Right.
Well, the reasoning is like, well, you don't understand.
I want to present more case.
It's like, oh, OK.
I didn't know you wanted to do more of your case.
Never mind.
Case unclosed.
So the court says, well, it is, of course, out of order to present this now, but I can see how the state was misled as to the necessity of any such testimony.
And I think it is proper to admit it at this time for the benefit of everybody.
No, this feels like mistrial then.
Then you just start over.
Yeah, I don't know.
That particular issue didn't come up really, but I think it doesn't.
It's because it doesn't matter.
Because like all the rest of the stuff is so important.
And then this is where the lawyers kind of sucked.
Like that's another part of this problem is that they didn't have good representation because Clark is like, well, but we don't have time to get another expert to whatever.
And so they say, tell you what, why don't you do it?
And then I'll give you as much time after to get an expert to rebut.
And they just never do.
Wow.
So I'm not really sure why, but it's probably just because three of the four lawyers at least think they're guilty and are probably just as racist as everybody else.
Clark doesn't, but he also Either from being not a great lawyer or being ill or whatever.
He didn't do this particularly well here.
I don't know.
Maybe he was outvoted or something.
Who knows?
But that was a part of the not being represented adequately.
So Stennis says, I will introduce this testimony now if the attorneys for the defendants are willing.
And Clark says, you may introduce it now if you wish or you can wait until later.
It will only take a short time for us to finish.
And Stennis says, all right, finish your case first then.
Like in the transcript, like, okay, I'll just finish fucking the case that no one's going to obviously believe at all.
And this is where the wives testify.
Kate Ellington, so that's Yank's wife.
I think Stennis tries to like bolster Cliff Dial's rep a little bit because on cross-examination he says, there has been something said about folks getting after Yank.
Fuck.
Fuck you, man.
Fuck you.
Are you kidding?
Sorry.
That's how Stennis presents the lynch mob that came and fucking tortured him.
There's been something said about folks getting after Yank the night that Mr. Stewart's body was found.
Mr. Cliff Dial took up for him, didn't he?
Yes, sir.
And protected him?
Yes, sir.
And then what I do like is that Clark gets up for redirect and is like, he didn't take up for him until after they handled him pretty rough, did he?
And she says, That night when they carried him to the house, he took up for him when they hung him twice.
He didn't let them do anything else after they beat him.
Yeah.
Did he help hang him?
I don't know.
What kind of shape was he in when he got home?
He was beat pretty bad.
How do you know Mr. Dial took up for him?
He told me.
He said he told the men not to bother him no more.
So, I think that did happen.
Again, it's just a weird fucking thing.
Well, and then 24 hours later, then he decides to pick him up himself, and yeah.
Yeah, and then Stennis, I guess thinking this fucking mattered, does a re-cross-examination.
I didn't know you could do that.
Because that's a pretty good line.
He didn't take up for him until after they handled him pretty well, you know, like going right into that.
And then Stennis tries to do his own version of that.
He stands right up and says, you say Yank told you himself that Mr. Dial took up for him and told them not to bother him anymore.
Yes sir, he told me that.
Witness dismissed.
He just tries to get that in there.
Wow, what a guy.
Before he did a bunch of beatings, he did this one thing.
So that was Kate Ellington.
The next is Arena Brown.
Ed Brown's wife, obviously.
And not much here.
I mean, yeah, she corroborates everything, but it doesn't fucking matter.
But the only thing interesting here is that she talks about how Ed Brown had not only Raymond's pistol, but his shotgun.
So like the murder victim lent Ed Brown two of his guns.
But then he was murdered with not a gun.
Yeah, it just shows, like, the trust that he had.
Like, this is a trusting relationship.
Lawyer asked her, like, oh, he had Raymond's pistol, didn't he?
He's like, yep.
He returned that pistol, like, that morning, I think, actually, before he died.
But he still had a shotgun.
Yep, still had a shotgun.
How long had he had it?
Oh, since we got there.
He lent it to him right away, so essentially, like, a couple years.
I feel like if the murder victim trusts a suspect with the guns, that says something.
I don't know.
Yeah.
So then Mary Shields, Henry Shields' wife, she's the one with the story about the she was cheating on him thing.
It's just very weird.
But she does corroborate like, oh, he got an axe to hit me and I took it and it knocked a place on my leg right there.
She points to it.
Maybe.
Yeah.
So maybe it's just a weird coincidence and that all happened.
Probably.
Who knows?
It's friggin' terrifying, like domestic violence with an axe involved.
Like, jeez.
I mean, not that this makes it better, but like, they kind of established, like, he wasn't really gonna hit you with that, and she's like, no.
He was threatening her with it, and she just took it from him.
Not that that makes it better, but it's not like he attacked her with an axe, is all I'm saying.
She confirms the jumper carrying the fresh meat thing.
Puts a little more detail on it.
Stennis does quite a long cross-examination here relative to the other wives.
And I think it's because Stennis doesn't maybe buy the whole Bob whatever story.
Bob Gross.
And so he asks her like, well, did he take all his clothes with him?
Did he take his shoes?
Did he leave them?
Did he, you know, whatever.
And I don't know, she has a pretty defined answer to all of it.
So yeah, maybe that just fucking happened.
And again, the fact that she says the meat thing was a Christmas.
I don't know, that makes it a little more plausible to me, because wouldn't you just say, like, yeah, oh, it was a week ago to keep the blood fresh, you know?
I don't know, maybe that's all just purely 100% coincidence.
Then the defense rests, and this is when the state gets to do its bonus extra Patreon-only case that it does.
The extra case that they get to do for some reason.
And so he has a fingerprint guy, but the testimony is kind of weird.
He basically testifies that Ed Brown's fingerprint was on the lamp thingy.
He did this analysis, but this is not like, you know, this is 1934.
This is fingerprint stuff.
He's talking about matching fingerprints, and he says he has a match.
And on cross-examination, he asks, So you've completed your analysis of it?
I completed my part when I put those prints in there.
You've reached your final conclusion?
Yes, sir.
These specimens on the lamp state whether or not they appeared to have been recently made.
Answer, they hadn't been there long.
There was a crust over each one of them caused by the heat.
Either old age or heat will cause a crust on them.
So either old eight like, wow, there's no further questions, which I don't know why there aren't, but like.
Okay, so you're saying either they could have been there a while, or the heat will cause a crust on them.
I don't know, that just fucking reeks of bullshit.
Ed Brown's prints could have been on everything because he worked with the guy.
Yeah.
So that seems like nothing to me.
He puts on this LG Temple guy, and I don't know if they all just do their first two initials just for anonymity, or was that just what they did in the 30s?
Just style.
Yeah.
But there's like four of them in a row.
TD Harbor, LG Temple, TH Nicholson, and EL Gilbert.
Four in a row.
P.T.
Barnum, they all did that kind of stuff.
Yeah, he was next.
And he's like, is it or is it not true that there's a sucker born every minute?
You beat me to it.
I was in that musical.
Oh, of course there's a musical.
I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but yeah.
No wonder you know it.
Whenever you know a reference that catches me by surprise, it turns out there's a musical of it or something.
Pretty much.
I wish people knew how much I'm not joking.
Like that's actually true.
Like there've been multiple times in our relationship, I'll reference something and she'll be like, yeah, yeah.
And I'll be like, wait, you know that?
She'll be like, it's a musical.
from a musical or there is a musical about it.
Anyway, he has this guy and not that any of this fucking matters at all, but just because I read this transcript 400 times.
He has a guy testify and it feels like it's kind of an own goal because he has LG Temple come on and say he once saw that Ed Brown had Stewart's keys.
This LG Temple guy was like, I went to get something from Stewart and he had to go get it from his safe.
And so He had Ed Brown give him the keys and there was money in the safe.
The cross-examination is like, when was this?
Two years ago.
That's it.
He doesn't even bother asking any more questions.
And actually, Mr. Clark moves to exclude it because it's irrelevant and immaterial.
The court overrules it.
But I would have gone the other way.
If Ed Brown frequently had Stewart's keys and the keys are what opened the safe to get the money that they allegedly stole or were trying to steal.
Yeah.
Like what?
I don't even get what they're trying to prove with this.
It's the weirdest thing.
I think he's trying to establish that he kept money in there.
And like, I guess that would say that because the keys, the keys, by the way, were left in the safe, like from the murder.
So they murdered him.
Money was taken?
Or the safe was empty, I guess?
The safe was empty, yeah.
I guess we don't know.
The story of the confessions is they didn't find any money.
Right.
I don't know.
I don't know what the point of that is.
It almost strikes me as making Ed Brown seem less guilty to me.
Yeah.
So then there's kind of where Clark really messes up a little more.
I don't know how much it matters, but the author makes a bit of a big deal about it because Stennis is setting up these witnesses who are, again, at the fucking beatings.
And he has them come on, but he doesn't have them come on to say like, here's what the confessions were.
He has them testify to say, we didn't feed them information.
And it goes on for quite a while.
Then at the end, Clark is like, we object to all this.
And the court sustains it.
The judge sustains it and says, strike everything except that they didn't feed them the information.
And so, the effect of that is like, I don't know how much that matters, because like, the jury's there.
I always wonder that about current trials, when the jury's there, and then they're like, strike, don't disregard that.
It's like, okay, I can't forget that I heard that, though.
Yeah.
So, they heard all the stuff kind of re-upping the confessions.
And by the way, that mentions the beatings, which you would think would be at least good for the jury to hear, but I guess it doesn't matter.
But like, that is all stricken from the record.
And the only thing that stays is just that they didn't feed them information, which is like, cool.
You would have been better off not striking that from the record.
You shouldn't have objected to that because it's better to have more mentions of like the awful beatings than it would be to get rid of that and just keep the thing that Stennis was actually trying to prove.
A simple assertion, yeah.
But I did like this cross-examination.
Okay, so he made these confessions.
Right.
And then, you know, picture Stennis sitting down and then the other lawyer getting up.
Was that before or after the whipping?
That was after, you know, essentially that kind of thing.
So far from my idiot, naive thought that like, oh, the awful abuse was not it.
You know, that's how the jury didn't hear about it.
No, no.
All three suspects testified to it, as you heard.
And then they had these people, I just said, testify to it again, basically confirming it.
They're not even hiding it.
Yeah.
They do talk like, oh yeah, but it wasn't really the beatings that did it.
It was just that, you know, they were telling the truth, so it's fine.
And I think they believe themselves, you know?
These people have really racist beliefs about black people.
And I think they actually believe themselves that like, yeah, no, they're guilty.
We just had to beat them to get them to say it, and then that's fine.
And then, if that's not enough, who would be the last witness except... Cliff Dial.
Cliff Dial.
Cliff fucking, so they're like, we call our last witness, literal Satan.
Yeah.
And then Satan walks in and he's like on fire, you know, and his tail and the horns.
And they're like, are you the worst human that's ever existed?
He's like, yeah, yeah, that's me.
You've heard of me.
And he just, Cliff Dial just says it.
Like he just, yeah.
I mean, he does the same thing where he kind of minimizes like, yeah, but you know, they were already saying it or something, you know, like that kind of shit.
It's hard to not just read this whole thing.
Cause it's just, this person is fucking psycho.
But there is a quote that actually may have genuinely affected things because newspapers picked this up.
Not now, but once it was at the Supreme Court and got the hold of the transcript.
Just to give you a fucking idea, they're talking about when Yank was being basically lynched and he intervened.
Just to give you more information on that, I'll read a little bit of this here.
So this is on cross-examination by Clark.
And by the way, yeah, Cliff Dial states witness.
It wasn't like, oh, Cliff, can you testify for the defense about how obviously these confessions were recorded?
Yeah.
No, this is Stennis being like, here we go.
I'll get- Star witness.
Satan, yeah.
To close out my case here.
And on cross-examination by Clark, they say this.
Now, when you went up there Friday night and befriended Yank, wow.
Who had charge of him then?
A bunch of them was there.
I expect it was 20 men.
Yeah, so the lynch mob, essentially.
Yeah.
Were they whipping him?
It first started around the fire there.
Sam Land and I went by the houses and told the Negroes to come up there and then went down to Dan Camps and came back and they had Yank and Manny Brooks.
By the way, Manny Brooks, whoever that is, there were other black people who were whipped and abused as a result of this.
Yeah, victimized.
Yeah, they didn't end up being defendants by some stroke of luck.
But yeah, like lest you think it was only these three people that they abused.
There are more than One other that also got caught up in this, but didn't get caught in the trail.
Did they whip them in your presence?
Yes, sir.
Did they hang him there?
Well, you know they didn't hang him.
They pulled him up, but they didn't hang him.
Of course, they didn't kill him.
No, sir.
How many times did they pull him up?
I didn't see them pull him up, but one time.
Did they whip him any after they pulled him up?
Yes, sir.
When did you first offer your friendship to him?
I begged them before they started to not beat the Negroes up.
Not sure I believe that, but.
But they wouldn't listen to you.
No, sir.
They whipped them a little anyhow.
Yes, sir.
A right smart.
And here's the quote that ended up making a lot of newspapers when the Supreme Court decision was reached.
A right smart, Clark asks.
And Satan answers, not too much for a Negro.
Not as much as I would have done if it were left to me.
Oh my God.
They whipped him and hung him up there, and you asked them to let him loose?
Yes, sir.
And he went on home then?
I suppose he did.
He left there?
Yes, sir.
What did you say he told them before he left there?
That he'd seen Ed Brown kill Mr. Stewart.
Did anybody ask him if he'd seen Ed kill him?
Yes, sir.
Some of the boys did.
They asked if he didn't see Ed kill him, and he said yes.
I guess he means did, but it's hard to translate that.
That was after the whipping and after he was hung up there?
Yes, sir.
So he's saying like, okay, essentially they got yanked to say that Ed did it.
And then obviously the lawyer's asking like, yeah, but was it because he was, you know, being beaten and hung and all that?
Cliff doesn't seem to get the implication.
Yeah.
This is where you're like, do you know you're being evil or are you an idiot?
Like, it doesn't matter, but like, I'm just curious.
Because he says, that was after the whipping and after he was hung up there.
Yes, sir.
He would have said that he did it if he had been asked.
Cliff Dial says, I don't think so.
I think you would have had better sense than that.
Unbelievable, like does he know that he's doing yeah, you know, like I just I can't help but wonder even though it doesn't matter but like Okay, so if he had more sense He would just never say anything and then they would just kill him because that's what happens, right?
You're fucked either way Like what do you mean more sense like the sense you would have is you just I guess you just die and then that's it it's so Fucking evil, I can't even fathom it.
There is a lot more on Clifftile.
But that's basically the end.
There is one last, and it's Dr. Wahl comes back, but I don't think it's, he just talks about the bloodstain, and he's like, yeah, I think it's fresh blood.
And then the cross-examination is like, are you sure?
And it's like, yeah, but there's no good reason.
He's like, would you really be able to tell?
Uh, yeah, kinda.
You know, it's like fucking nothing.
And that's the end.
They rest.
You wanna like, guess what the jury found?
Guilty.
Is my guess.
Yeah, guilty.
And here's the last fucking thing, insane thing from, I guess, this part.
After this, the judge declined to pay the lawyers the $25 fee that you usually pay for representing indigent clients because he was afraid it would stir up the mob.
Like, just to give you an idea of the racism.
Quote, after the trial, the judge refused to pay Clark and the others the customary $25 fee for representing indigent defendants because he feared the public reaction if he authorized the payment.
So it's like, you already killed them.
This is how fucking horrible these people are.
You already did it, man.
You killed these three black men.
You've lynched them, essentially.
In some, you've legally lynched them.
Yeah.
But you're still like, yeah, but if I pay the people who even dared to kind of barely defend them in the trial and do a shit job.
They had to.
Who, yeah, who I may do it.
Court appointed.
If I give them the customary $25, like what might happen to me?
That level of racism, like how do you even, how?
So yeah, that's what happened.
It was all there.
The jury heard every fucking thing.
It's even worse than you would have imagined.
I didn't even do justice to how horrible this was.
The kind of terrorism that this is.
I don't understand how black people even fucking How were they not just in a constant state of pure anxiety and trauma?
And I guess the answer is maybe they were, you know, and that's, that's, they talk a lot about that generational trauma.
That's another reason that I really wanted to do this story.
This population of people, of human beings just had to exist in a state like that, where at any moment something could happen and a mob of white people would kill them in the most horrible way.
Like at any moment.
I don't know how you could live like that.
It's one reason why I just think we're 0.001% into properly rectifying history.
Yeah, toning for... Actually, no, we're at negative 10%.
We've gone backwards, actually.
I think that's fair.
That's what really motivates me in a lot of this.
We don't know the half of it.
We don't know the fifth of it.
Yeah, I'm aware of a lot of these things, but when you actually read it and you read how recent it is and you think, I mentioned their kids, you know, two of the three of them had kids.
Those kids are our grandparents, essentially.
Maybe our parents.
And they lived in that state of mind and they were raised that way.
And their kids, stuff hadn't changed much 20, 30 years later.
Right.
It's just like, this is so fucking recent.
Think about what life was like.
It's also a reason I wanted to contrast.
Remember we talked about the parody of white privilege that was Stennis' biography?
He was born and then someone like handed him a fucking... Yeah, yeah.
They're like, you should be a lawyer anyway.
No, you don't have to apply.
Just come into law school.
He insisted on his admission to law school.
And they're like, you should be, yeah, you should be a representative.
Cool.
You should be this.
You should be the district attorney.
Okay.
And then you contrast with what the sharecropping lives of these black people was.
Like, it's just, it is insulting to all of our intelligence.
The idea, it just makes me think about when Sam Harris had Charles Murray on to say like, yeah, here's the thing.
Black people's IQs, they're just not as high.
The idea that we're on anything like a level playing field and that you could just, Test some black people and you could test some white people and be like, wow, looks like the white people perform a little better.
Could it be anything to do with the racial terrorism that happened for hundreds of years?
Like, the level of stress they have from that, what's left them more impoverished than white people, like all these, we have a phrase for it, it's systemic racism.
Yeah.
All those things combined, you think that's going to have no effect?
On how a human being might perform on a test.
So we have not begun to account for the actual trauma that's been inflicted on black people in this country.
And I think we've gone backwards and I think we continue to go backwards and we're denying history even more now than probably we did 30 years ago.
You know, it's getting worse.
It's such an injustice that it drives me insane.
Anytime I hear someone talk about how racism is over, It's like, even if I granted for some reason that insane idea that like, yeah, okay, it's all done now.
Well, what about all this shit that was never atoned for at all?
Ever, like in any way.
Think about the material, and just this one little story we're looking at.
You already see so many signs of like, how the hell was this anything like a level playing field?
All the white people, they own the fucking land.
They own the fucking houses.
All the black people are sharecroppers.
That's a horribly economically abusive situation.
You're getting paid a fraction of what you should to basically work for- Do all the work.
Slightly better than slavery, you know?
You have no rights, by the way.
You're in this constant state of could-be-killed-any-moment-by-a-fucking-mob.
And also, just look at the, like, monetary differences there.
Like, they can't own a house.
They're renting.
The person who owns the house can just tell the, you know, the angry mob, yeah, go ahead and break in.
It's just all that little stuff in just this one story alone.
It's just not comparable.
And it's, like, insulting to even consider that someone could believe That there's anything like a level playing field, given how not that long ago this was.
And this isn't the end of it.
This is 1934.
This is barely even close to like things changing.
And that's within one lifetime.
That's 80 whatever years ago.
That's one person's lifetime.
That's not that long ago.
So anyway, that's the case.
There is, as much as I've mentioned to you on how interesting this is, everything that I've been saying about like, fucking, this is so interesting.
This is so fascinating.
I haven't even gotten to that yet.
Like, cause.
What happened after the process of this getting to the Supreme Court is so fucking fascinating.
And it's at least, you know, like a little bit more positive.
It like gives us a chance to not be maybe entirely bummed out.
Some like hope surrounding the journey.
Yeah.
There are characters coming up, any one of whom would be so much better to name a fucking building after than John fucking Stennis.
You heard what he did in the trial.
It gets worse.
There's more.
There's more about what Stennis did that makes him worse.
So that's my teaser.
Next time on Where There's Woke, we're not even at all done with how much John Stennis sucked in this thing.
And I think it's already disqualifying.
Like already, fuck you.
You shouldn't have had anything named after you.
Fuck you.
It's even worse.
That's coming up next time.
Thanks so much for listening.
Does this suck?
I don't know.
What is this?
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