The case of Joe Swindell, 26 years old, charged with the horrible crime of carnal knowledge of a little 13-year-old girl is ended. Swindell was found guilty in Superior Court here this week and sentenced to 30 years in prison by Judge N.A. Sinclair.
The sordid details of the crime, well known to the general public, are not to be repeated. Elwood Barkley, 17-years old and companion of Swindell on the night of the crime, by his testimony helped the state to make a conclusive case. The little victim of Swindell did not appear in court. Mentally unbalanced as a result of the scandal, the state could not take her testimony. There were witnesses to testify that the crime had been committed, and witnesses who had heard Swindell flippantly make incriminating remarks before his arrest.
This review of the case in court here this week and the sentence has perhaps had a more lasting and wholesome effect on the mortals of the town than anything that has happened in many a day. It is unfortunate that a life is ruined and sorrow brought to several houses, but a court of justice has brought a respect of the law to others of the ilk of Sychab? That will serve as a deterrent in further crimes. Others, too, will keep stricter watch on their little daughters?
Farrior Sentenced
J.D. Farrior, aged grandfather, of the little girl who sought to avenge the wrong done his beloved grandchild by shooting Swindell in his cell last summer, does not go unpunished by the court. Immediately after sentence was pronounced on Swindell, the court ordered that Mr. Farrior spend not more than three years and not less than one year in state prison. The verdicts given out this week seem to have been generally approved by public opinion.
A Fine Contribution
Perhaps the finest contributions of the literature of commonsense issued from the bench in Pasquotank County in many a day, were the remarks of Judge Sinclair in connection with the sentences imposed in the Swindell case. Judge Sinclair said:
“The hardest thing that a Judge has to do is to do his duty when he remembers very frequently it means ?? suffering in the innocent than of the guilty, and I am sure that everybody sympathetic with this man’s father and mother, but we have never yet been able to learn how to punish crime without visiting sufferings upon the innocent.
“This man has been guilty of the vilest and most contemptible crime that perhaps the imagination could perceive. I don’t think any one that heard the evidence in the case has any doubt about his guilt. The punishment for rape is death, and yet in some respects this is most reprehensible than that, if possible. A man of mature years and experience who deliberately plans the deception(?) of a little girl doesn’t entitle the defendant to much consideration when it comes to the question of punishment.
A man like he is, is as dangerous as the wild beasts, the beasts that prey upon the street. An example must be made of this case to deter other men like him. The law is in?? for the protection of innocent childhood and it is not altogether the question of what he deserves but we have to make an example to deter others from doing likewise.
“A man that is guilty of the infamous crime that this man is, has forfeited his right to live among the society of people. So far as his physical condition is concerned is a matter that I cannot consider; I don’t know whether he will ever recover or not—the Doctors say they don’t know; he may or he may not. According to the evidence of the Doctors he may get well, that’s a question which I will be compelled to leave to the decision of other authorities have to pass beyond me.” And here is what Judge Sinclair said with reference to the Farrior case:
“This case is one of the saddest cases that I have seen in my experience; a man of his year, evidently of violent temper who in a long life never learned to restrain his temper. He has brought unspeakable sorrow and grief upon ?? with reference of the Farrior deal about this case an in connection with it I am faced by one fact. There is a poisonous sentiment in this State that men have a right to redress their own wrong and the doctrine is being taught in this state that they can’t trust the Courts. It is preached the whole length and breadth of this State that men have the right to go out and practice mob law and take the law in their own hands because they haven’t confidence in the court. This poisonous sentiment cannot be tolerated in North Carolina; it is a slander upon the Courts. Courts can and do enforce the law—there has been no better illustration of it than has been in the court this week. Men can trust the court and must obey the law.
We find that in Scripture as well as State Law. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s. And yet you sometime see men and women who call themselves Christians, men and women work themselves into a frenzy about the enforcement of some of the laws but go out upon the highways and attempt an excuse to justify an act like this defendant has done. I don’t see how any man or woman can do that without confessing themselves a hypocrite.
“There is no justification for any man to take the law in his own hands. It is the duty of the courts to stand like a stone wall against it. Men are going to have their lives and liberty and property safe in North Carolina.
“I think this is the most aggravated case of its kind that I have ever known in my career, the most inexcusable; and here was the Court sitting in this Courtroom ready and able to enforce the law to the utmost, and the Judge presiding in the Court had actually sent them to bring the prisoner here that justice might be meted out and this defendant in defiance of the law and in defiance of the Court goes and attempts to shoot him to death in his cell.
“If this man was a young man in the full possession of his strength and vigor I would give him the full penalty of the law. It is a painful thing to have to punish him at all. It is a great regret to me that he couldn’t have been the good citizen that Mr. Blades was.
. . . .
From page 3 of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Nov. 14, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn83025812/1924-11-14/ed-1/seq-4/
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