National Affairs: Assault by Leer

For the third time in 17 months, Mack Ingram, North Carolina Negro farmer, went on trial last week, charged with assaulting a 17-year-old tobacco grower’s daughter, although he had not been within 50 feet of her at the time. In the first trial in recorder’s court, Ingram explained that he had mistaken blue-jeaned Willa Jean Boswell for one of her brothers, had started to follow her across a cornfield to ask if he could borrow the family trailer. When she took fright and ran, he turned back to his car. The judge, acting on the basis of a North Carolina law that says assault can be committed even without physical contact, sentenced Ingram to two years in jail (TIME. July 23, 1951). Last November, Ingram’s appeal went before a mixed jury (four Negroes, eight whites) in a state superior court; when two of the Negro jurors held out for acquittal, the court ordered a mistrial.

Last week an all-white jury in Yanceyville reviewed the evidence again. The tobacco grower’s daughter, now married and the mother of a six-month-old child, insisted that Ingram had “leered” at her. The jury’s verdict: guilty. The court’s sentence: a suspended six-month jail term and five years’ probation.