A Fearless Judge
November 16, 1895
Summary
A Judge declares that three women who were wrongly accused of murder are not to be delivered to the Sheriff in Lunenburg County.
Transcription
His Honor, B. R. Wellford, Judge of the Circuit Court is too well known to need any extended notice here.
His action in issuing to Hon. George D. Wise and Judge H. W. Flournoy a writ of habeas corpus made returnable Wednesday, Nov. 13, and restraining the City Sergeant from delivering the prisoners to the sheriff of Lunenburg County and instructing the last named officer not to receive them was in the unalloyed interest of humanity.
To have carried Mary Abernathy twenty miles across the country in wagons would have in all probability resulted in premature birth and have caused her death, without speaking of the fright to which she would have been subjected. Moreover, to have carried them without military escort would have been followed by lynchings.
It was then purely in the interest of the higher guarantees of the constitution that Judge Wellford issued this writ.
It is becoming all the more manifest that there are men this commonwealth, white men, who are conscientiously carrying out their oaths of office, even though their own prejudices are called into question.
They love justice and admire fair play. Realizing that the machinery of the law was never intended to operate in promoting the perpetration of felonious intentions, they never hesitate when they can to respond to a citizen’s cry of distress, and find a remedy in the labyrinth confines of the recesses of the law. Judge Wellford has taken high ground and won golden encomiums from Virginians everywhere. Lynch-law must go!
His action in issuing to Hon. George D. Wise and Judge H. W. Flournoy a writ of habeas corpus made returnable Wednesday, Nov. 13, and restraining the City Sergeant from delivering the prisoners to the sheriff of Lunenburg County and instructing the last named officer not to receive them was in the unalloyed interest of humanity.
To have carried Mary Abernathy twenty miles across the country in wagons would have in all probability resulted in premature birth and have caused her death, without speaking of the fright to which she would have been subjected. Moreover, to have carried them without military escort would have been followed by lynchings.
It was then purely in the interest of the higher guarantees of the constitution that Judge Wellford issued this writ.
It is becoming all the more manifest that there are men this commonwealth, white men, who are conscientiously carrying out their oaths of office, even though their own prejudices are called into question.
They love justice and admire fair play. Realizing that the machinery of the law was never intended to operate in promoting the perpetration of felonious intentions, they never hesitate when they can to respond to a citizen’s cry of distress, and find a remedy in the labyrinth confines of the recesses of the law. Judge Wellford has taken high ground and won golden encomiums from Virginians everywhere. Lynch-law must go!
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Lower Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Cord Fox
Citation
“A Fearless Judge,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 20, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1480.