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Saturday, July 22, 2023

Alleged Floggers Found Not Guilty; Klan Detective Guilty of Tampering with State's Witnesses, July 22, 1923

Three Alleged Floggers Found Not Guilty Bitterly Fought Trial. . . Lawson, Hedgepeth and Broden Have Other Charges Nolle Prosse. . . Klucker Held. . . Taliaferro Given Sentence and Fine for Tampering with Witnesses. . . Sinclair’s Charge. . . Judge Warned Jury That Ku Klux Klan Was Not on Trial—No Demonstration in Courtroom When Verdict Was Rendered—Official Letters of Klan Detective Offered in Court

By the Associated Press

Lumberton, N.C., July 21—Fifty minutes after the fate of three Robeson county citizens had been placed in the hands of the jury here this afternoon the defendants heard the words “not guilty,” which exonerated them of participation in the whipping of two white women by hooded raiders near Proctorville, N.C., on the night of April 14.

And five minutes later the trio—Mike Lawson, chief of police of the village of Fairmont, and Johnson Hedgepeth, a farmer, and Jule Brogden, a mechanic, both of Proctorville—were free men for Solicitor Thomas A. McNeill promptly nolle prossed the indictment for first degree burglary which had been returned against them at the same time as that charging the assaulting and kidnapping of Mrs. Hattie Purvis and Mrs. Mary Ann Whatson, the floggers’ victims.

But H.L. Taliaferro, who admitted being a special investigator for the Ku Klux Klan did not fare so well as the defendants in the principal case. Immediately after the jury returned in the flogging trial, Taliaferro, who is said to come from Atlanta, was given a hearing by Judge N.A. Sinclair, presiding in Robeson county superior court, and adjudged in contempt on charges of tampering with state’s witnesses in the flogging case. On each of the three counts Judge Sinclair imposed a fine of $250 and a jail sentence of 30 days, a total of $750 and 90 days in jail.

Pending arrangements for an appeal, Judge Sinclair fixed bond for the klan detective at $5,000.

In refusing a motion to reduce the appearance bond of Taliaferro to $2,500 or $3,000, Judge Sinclair, who this morning received a threatening unsigned letter, defied the forces of lawlessness which he declared are at work in this state.

Although he made no direct mention of the letter or of the similar unsigned letter received last night by Stephen McIntyre, the most active of the lawyers for the prosecution, he referred indirectly to the McIntyre warning, which contained the following paragraph:

“Your intelligence tells you that the exposure of this warning brings an invisible, invincible hand that is mightier than the courts themselves upon your poor unworthy carcass.”

Pointing to Taliaferro, he continued: “This man professes to be the representative of an organization which has declared that it is mightier than the courts and, speaking for myself, I want to say that the courts accept the challenge.”

The trial of Lawson, Hedgepeth and Brogden, which came to a close shortly before 4:30 o’clock when the jury reported an acquitted after taking one ballot, was bitterly contested from its start early Tuesday morning.

When the verdict was announced, there was no sign of a demonstration in the courtroom. Judge Sinclair had instructed Sheriff Lewis to have deputies stationed at various points in the crowd to prevent any manifestation of approval or disapproval. There was a slight stir as the defendants and their families realized that they had been freed of the charge that had been hanging over them since the middle of April. The two prosecuting witnesses, Mrs. Purvis and Mrs. Watson, appeared somewhat crestfallen.

Both of the women had heard their names and characters denounced as “bad” and “very bad” literally scores of times during the progress of the trial by lawyers and witnesses and neither had winced at the hard things said of them until today. Mrs. Purvis appeared to feel the scratching criticisms of herself which were injected in his address to the jury this morning by H.E. Stacey, former state senator of Robeson, who made the last argument for the defense. She hung her head and her eyes appeared red as if from weeping. Her husband, Henry F. Purvis, sat by her side throughout the entire trial.

Mrs. Watson’s constant companions during the six days the case was underway, were her daughters, Norine, dark-haired young woman of 18, and Natheline, a little blond of 12 years. Her husband, Sam Watson, the Proctorville policeman, was not present during the trial. Mrs. Watson, on the stand yesterday, accused him of being head of the Proctorville klavern of the klan and offered to name the members of the klan but was not permitted to do so by Judge Sinclair. She stood up under the attacks launched on her character apparently unmoved but her daughters at times lost their composure when the scandal of the community as told from the witness stand.

T.L. Johnson, major of Lumberton, and chief counsel for the defendants, interrupted Attorney McIntyre during the latter’s hour and a half address to the jury to deny that his fee was paid by the Ku Klux Klan, as he said he understood the speaker to charge. Judge Sinclair reprimanded him for the interruption.

The defense of the alleged klansmen was an alibi. They produced a hundred witnesses to prove that Lawson, Hedgepeth and Brodgen could not have been in the little negro churchyard near Proctorville at 10 o’clock on the night of April 14 when Mrs. Watson and then Mrs. Purvis, one after the other, were bent over a log and flogged unmercifully, according to their testimony, but a band of hooded and white-robed raiders.

Nothing can justify the kidnapping and flogging of Mrs. Purvis and Mrs. Watson, as the state contends was done by the defendants and others wearing masks and robes, Judge Sinclair declared in delivering his charge to the jury, immediately after the dinner recess.

“It matters not whether these women are moral or immoral, of good character or bad character, it would constitute a crime which cannot be excused, condoned, palliated or justified.”

The jurors were warned that the Ku Klux Klan was not on trial. “It makes no difference to you in this case whether the defendants are member of the Ku Klux Klan, or whether they are not members,” Judge Sinclair said. They are being tried in this case as individuals indicted and charged with violating the laws of North Carolina and it is your duty to try them upon the evidence offered at this trial, and the law as given you by the court, without regard to whether they belong to an organization known as the Ku Klux Klan, or not.”

“The court charges you,” he continued, “that you cannot use any of the evidence in this case referring to the Ku Klux Klan except as bearing upon the contention of the state that such evidence tends to prove the identification of the defendants as the persons charge din the bill of indictment, and upon the contention of the defendants that such evidence tends to show, that the defendants were not the persons who committed the crime charged in the bill of indictment. You are not permitted to consider the evidence with reference to the Ku Klux Klan or its activities for any other purpose.”

The jury was instructed as to the law bearing on the three charges which the defendants were being tried which were kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon and assault upon a female.

Judge Sinclair’s charge was delivered following the address of Attorney McIntyre, of the prosecution, which was the last of 10 arguments made before the jurors.

The specific charges against Taliaferro were that he called upon Mrs. Purvis and Mrs. Watson and by intimidation and persuasion endeavored to prevent them from testifying against the defendants in the flogging case.

Taliaferro, in a series of affidavits submitted in reply to the state’s contentions, said that he was sent to investigate the Proctorville outrage by the imperial palace of the Ku Klux Klan at Atlanta upon request of E.F. Randolph of Warsaw, Klaliff of the North Carolina organization.

The case was submitted upon affidavits alone. The prosecution sprang a surprise by offering in evidence original copies of letters written by Taliaferro to high officials of the klan in regard to his connection with the case. Readily admitting his signature, the defendant was obviously surprised when the original letters written by Taliaferro to high officials of the klan in regard to his connection with the case. Readily admitting his signature the defendant was obviously surprised when the original letters, written on the stationery of a Lumberton hotel, were offered by the state.

From the front page of the Durham Morning Herald, Sunday, July 22, 1923

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