The Odd Case Of Charlie Ware

Ed. note: this is the second of three articles by a second year student at Harvard Law School on the strange trial of Charlie Ware in Baker County, Ga. Ware, a Negro, was charged with deadly assault on the Sheriff. His lawyers, C. E. King and Donald Hollowell, attempted to prove the charge was a phony one intended to excuse the Sheriff for having shot Ware four times in cold blood.

The first article discussed the prosecution's case, which rested heavily on the testimony of the Sheriff, L. Warren Johnson. This article begins with the presentation of the defense.

At about 3 p.m. Wednesday the defense began to put its witnesses on the stand. Charlie's wife Louise was the first to testify. She insisted that she never invited the Sheriff into her house, and saw that she saw Charlie lying on the ground when she looked outside, and later found his glasses at that spot.

Then the defense called five Negroes who testified to Charlie's conduct at the ballpark on Ichauway Plantation. All agreed that Charlie Ware was not drunk. They said he had grabbed Coke Malone's arm to keep him from entering the spat between his mother and Bud Walker. The witnesses further agreed that Charlie left when Touchstone's man told the people to leave, and that Charlie did not curse at Touchstone.

The cross-examination of those witnesses reflected traditional "Southern" attitudes rather than the normal mode of courtroom proceedings. All the Negro witnesses were addressed by their first names only, since no Negro in the South is accorded the decency of any title, even one so simple as "Mr." In addition, the tactic of the State's attorney was to establish that each one of the Negroes at the ball park had had something to drink; thus attempting to cast these persons in their traditional mold as irresponsible, happy-go-lucky, and rather stupid.

The attempt to ridicule the witnesses backfired, especially in the case of Rosa Lee Jones, one of the protagonists in the fight at the plantation. She drew herself up with dignity and stuck to her story in a clear and even noble tone.

Although the trial had lasted at this point 'til about six o'clock, there was no sign that the court intended to adjourn. Actually, the judge intended to continue the case until late at night; the prosecution knew that the defense had an important witness arriving the next day, and it hoped to force the defense to rest its case before that witness could testify the next morning. When the conspiracy between the prosecution, the Sheriff and the judge became patently obvious, defense attorney Hollowell frightened the judge into a recess by hinting there were several more witnesses to testify that night.

The "surprise" witness for the defense was James Markham, the "cow-man" who figured in the Sheriff's story. Born in Iowa, he had been working on the Newberry Plantation at the time this incident occurred and left Baker County about a year later.

Knowing that Markham's testimony would challenge the Sheriff's assertions and therefore possibly endanger his life, defense attorney Hollowell attempted to contact Burke Marshall in Washington to obtain Federal protection. As Marshall was unavailable, the Justice department referred Hollowell to the man assigned to southwest Georgia, who suggested Hollowell contact the state attorney. Hollowell dismissed this proposal as "naive" and was unable to get any Federal help. Two FBI men subpoenaed to testify refused to follow Markham back to Albany from the trial, even though they were going the same way.

a.m. Thursday and took the stand. He testified that the Sheriff had been drinking on the night of July 4th, and that, when he tried to push the Sheriff's car, the Sheriff kept putting on the brakes. To avoid cracking up his own car, Markham had to go back to the plantation to pick up a battery.

After he had completed his testimony, the State refused to excuse him although he had told the judge there were sick cattle he was supposed to aid.

Markham arrived in court about 10 He was locked in the witness room with the Negroes, creating probably the first integrated witness room in the history of Baker County. (During the two hour recess for lunch, Markham remarked that someone had told him that the Sheriff had finished a whole bottle of liquor at his place the previous night.)

At this point Charlie Ware took the stand to make a defendant's statement. (Since such testimony is not made under oath, he was not subjected to cross-examination.) The gist of his story contradicted that of the Sheriff's at almost every point. He indicated that during the afternoon of the Fourth of July he had had about three beers, that he had tried to prevent Coke Malone from getting into the fight by grabbing Coke's hand and walking him off the ball park. He denied cursing at Guy Touchstone.

He said he spent that evening with friends and returned home at approximately 2 a.m. As he was undressing for bed, the Sheriff appeared at his door saying something like "Open this damned door and come out."

Ware stepped outside, was ordered to the car and told to place his hands on the front fender while the Sheriff searched his pockets. He found the penknife but returned it to Ware. Ware said Johnson then asked him, "Why have you been hiding from me all night?" When Ware replied that he had just gotten home and hadn't been hiding, the Sheriff knocked him over the left eye with the butt of his pistol leaving a deep gash that required two stitches..

Ware said he was shoved into the back seat, and that the Sheriff and Jack Minter drove him to Newton, each taking occasional swigs from a whiskey bottle. Ware then stated that the Sheriff told him to lean his elbows on the front seat and, when he did, was punched in the mouth by Johnson. He was ordered not to lean back in the car, not to let any of the blood dripping from the laceration over his eye fall on the seat.

The Sheriff put Ware in the front and took him to a place which he recalled having a lot of trees. Since his glasses had been knocked off, he couldn't at that time identify exactly where he was. (The jail has a clump of trees around it.) Ware said that the Sheriff asked him for his knife and and placed it in Ware's handcuffed hands. Ware recalled the Sheriff contacting the state troopers on his radio saying "There's a nigger coming at me with a knife, I'll have to shoot him." According to Ware, the voice on the radio responded "Go ahead."

The Sheriff then stepped back and shot Ware twice in the neck on the left side and once in his left shoulder and again grazing him across the chest. After that, Ware doesn't remem- took it, saying "This won't do." When the car pulled to a stop, the Sheriff took a long knife of about seven inches ber gaining consciousness for at least a day.

In rebuttal, the State put on an FBI agent who said he had taken a statement from Ware on July 6, 1961, while Ware was still in the hospital. In this statement Ware had sworn that he had drunk six cans of beer and had had a few swallows from a pint bottle of whiskey. This, taken in conjunction with a statement made a bare two hours after Ware had been admitted to the hospital on the 5th to an investigator from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation saying he had had only three cans of beer was intended to weaken Ware's credibility.

Then the defense put on Robert Lee Daniels, a Negro who had been arrested for "drunken driving" on the Fourth of July and had been in jail during the night when Charlie Ware had been shot. He reported he was awake at the time the shooting occurred and had seen the Sheriff put a knife into Charlie Ware's hand. He then said he saw the Sheriff step back into the shadow of the trees and cry "Hold it," and shoot; again "Hold it," another shot; again, "Hold it," a third shot.

Speaking back indignantly to the prosecutor's question of how he saw any shooting if the Sheriff was standing in the trees, Daniels retorted that you "can see flashes of fire from a slingshot." Also, he saw Charlie Ware twist in pain with each flash from the gun.

He then testified that the Sheriff pulled off in the car with another white man in it and a few seconds later saw the car return. The Sheriff came into his cell, Daniels pretended to sleep and the Sheriff shook him to awaken him. He told the Sheriff he didn't see anything. The Sheriff left with a final "you better not remember."

The State returned with two Negro witnesses who attempted to disprove Daniels' story by saying that he had been put in the back cell that night along with them. However, one of the witnesses admitted that he fell asleep immediately when he got into the cell, and the other, who works for ex-Sheriff Screws, admitted that he was too drunk. The effect of their testimony was nil.