State v. Mann Mock Trial

Thomas Ruffin. Photograph by Matthew Benjamin Brady (1822-1896), located in the National Archives and Records Administration. It is in the public domain.

Opening

• Your Honors, may it please the Court.

• I appear on behalf of the State of North Carolina to address one part of this case: the historical context for a master's authority over a person he has hired for a year.

Slavery has never gone entirely unregulated by law

• Slavery is not a new institution.

• Nearly four thousand years ago, the Code of Hammurabi in Mesopotamia treated slaves as property, but it still held an owner accountable if a slave was harmed by someone else.

• 

  Slave brick-makers,
  depicted in the tomb of the
  vizier Rekmire,c. 1450 BCE

  Ancient Egypt relied heavily on enslaved labor, including war captives and debtors bound to work they had not chosen, often for life.

• Greece and Rome built major parts of their economies on slavery as well.
  

• In each of these systems, the law still recognized the enslaved person as someone it had to account for, even while denying them freedom and treating them as property.

What happened to Lydia falls outside even that history

• She was whipped for a minor offense.

• When she tried to escape the whipping, she was shot and seriously wounded, by a man who had rented her services for a single year and did not even own her.

Answering the defense's argument

• The defense will argue that a master's power must be absolute for slavery to function, and that any limit on that power undermines the institution itself.

• The historical record does not support that claim.

• Slave systems going back thousands of years — in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and later the plantation economies of the Americas — treated enslaved people as property with very few rights.

• Even so, most of these systems still drew some line between disciplining a slave and endangering that slave's life.

Closing and request to the Court

• The jury in Chowan County reviewed the facts and found Mr. Mann's conduct cruel, unwarranted, and disproportionate to Lydia's offense.

• That finding was reasonable, and it was consistent with how the law has treated this question elsewhere.

• This Court is not being asked to change the underlying law of slavery in North Carolina.

• 

  1767, Chowan County Courthouse: A National Historic Landmark

  It is being asked whether any limit exists on what a person holding another in servitude may do to that person.

• The State submits that such a limit must exist, and respectfully asks this Court to affirm the verdict below.

• Thank you, Your Honors.

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Sources

• NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, "State v. Mann (A-94)"

• NCpedia, "State v. John Mann"

• North Carolina History Project, "State v. Mann"

• Wikipedia, "North Carolina v. Mann"

• Study.com, "History of Slavery in Ancient Times"

• Wikipedia, "Slavery in ancient Egypt"

• Equal Justice Initiative, "The Transatlantic Slave Trade — Origins"

• Encyclopedia Virginia, "The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Middle Passage"

AI Disclosure: I used Claude.ai as an assistant for research findings and for writing my script. I used key terms like "shape the research in the form of a script for oral arguments in the trial" and "write in a professional style, not academic." The images were found and embedded by me while the writing portion was done entirely by Claude.ai.

Eight Values of Free Expression

 

An overturned truck with a Pepsi logo burns in the center of Tehran during riots which paralyzed the city on December 27, 1978.

Dissent Isn’t always Universal 

Dissent isn’t something we should fear doing, it should be something we need to embrace in our current age of restrictive governments. 

Out of the eight values we have analyzed, I am most passionate about protecting one's ability to express their grievances towards the government. Best said by Steven Shiffrin in Dissent, Injustice, and the Meanings of America, “The First Amendment protects minority views, no matter how unpopular. You have a strongly protected right to disagree with the government — and everyone else. In fact, it is your patriotic duty to criticize the government” (American Civil Liberties Union, 2018, p. 2). If we have the legal right to articulate our opinions, even if they’re considered unpopular, and that it’s encouraged to criticize the government.

Why isn’t this usually followed through in different governments of various countries? 

I am Iranian-American and the subject of citizens and governments clashing together is not an unfamiliar subject for me. 

My mother and father’s experience living in the past era of the Islamic Republic of Iran opened my eyes to the importance of free speech and opinion; how it did not come easy for my parent’s post revolution given the censorship and threats against free speech. It was much harder for my mother given the drastic change in the cultural climate that came after the 1979 revolution: a new wave of strict Islamic codes and mandatory dress codes given to many women. The system controlled art, literature, media, and many forms of entertainment. This of course, included heavy institutional oversight to suppress public dissent and discourse over the Islamic government. 

The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance is an Iranian Government agency formed in 1984, responsible for overseeing and regulating any domestic media, cultural expression, and enforcing further state censorship. 

The Ministry was mentioned in a 2018 Reporters

Without Borders article, reflecting on the 39th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution and the legacy of the regime continuing to harass journalists and citizen-journalists. The regime’s ministry has persecuted the freedom to inform not only domestic media, but international media. 350 media outlets were closed, issuing more than 800 journalists and citizen-journalists being detained and interrogated with 500 of them being given prison sentences ranging from three months to 19 years.  Propaganda is recycled as official foreign media, funded by the regime which is also supported by fake news world networks that take pride in suppressing the freedom to inform. 

Public dissent, a concept that should be a universal right for all countries, cost the lives of many civilians. Protests that erupted in Iran on 28, December 2025, demonstrated the exhaustion from years of repression and censorship that have weighed on newer and older generations of men and women living in Iran. Iranian authorities responded with a deadly crackdown during January of 2026, by cutting off all internet access to conceal crimes against their own people. The regime has used unlawful force, firearms and other prohibited weapons, against protesters, which resulted in mass killings and serious injuries. It is unfair to the people of Iran that their own right to free speech is compromised by the regime, with excessive censorship further fueling the years of built up resentment towards the government. 

Protecting dissent is one of the most important Eight Values of Expression because of what it means for fighting against oppression and censorship. I believe that everyone has a right to criticize their own government, and that we need to be more socially aware of how the right doesn’t always apply to everyone’s government. 

People in Iran make their way toward Aichi cemetery in Saqez after the death of Mahsa Amini.

---

Sources

• Amnesty International, "What happened at the protests in Iran?" — details the mass killings of protesters starting December 28, 2025, and the internet blackout Iran imposed to conceal the crackdown.

• Reporters Without Borders, "Revolution anniversary – 39 years of news control and censorship in Iran" — documents decades of media closures, journalist detentions, and censorship under the Islamic Republic.

• NBC News, "Iran attempts to crush dissent with a wave of arrests after deadly crackdown" — mass arrests following the deadly January 2026 crackdown.

Speech to the Town Hall

Photograph of Charles Sumner from the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C

In the voice of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts

[Introduction]

Friends, neighbors, fellow citizens —

My name is Charles Sumner. I am a Senator from the great state of Massachusetts, a lawyer by training, and — I will say it plainly — an enemy of slavery for as long as I have had breath to speak.

I did not come here tonight to flatter you. I came to tell you the truth as I see it, and to ask you to stand with me.

[The Moral Case]

I have stood on the floor of the United States Senate and called slavery what it is: a crime. Not a policy. Not a regional custom to be tolerated for the sake of quiet. A crime against justice, against liberty, and against the plain word of our own Declaration — that all men are created equal.

Some in this hall may tell you slavery is a "necessary evil," or worse, a positive good, a blessing to master and to slave alike. I have heard that argument dressed in fine language on the Senate floor. I reject it utterly. There is no dignity in chains. There is no blessing in the whip, the auction block, the family torn apart and sold to different corners of this country. I have seen the bills of sale. I have heard the testimony. Do not let anyone tell you this is a gentle institution. It is barbarism, and it wears a gentleman's coat.

[The Political and National Case]

The Caning of Charles Sumner

I am often asked — why should the North concern itself with what happens in the South? I will tell you why: because slavery does not stay where it is. It reaches for new territory. It reached for Kansas, and Kansas bled for it. I stood in that chamber and spoke against "The Crime Against Kansas" for two long days, and for my trouble I was struck down at my own desk, beaten nearly to death by a man who could not answer my arguments with anything but a cane.

I tell you that story not for your pity, but for your understanding. When the defenders of slavery cannot win the argument, they reach for the club. That alone should tell you which side stands on truth, and which side stands on force.

This is not merely a Southern question. It is an American question. A house divided between freedom and bondage cannot stand forever as it is. Sooner or later, this nation must choose — wholly free, or forever compromised.

[The Call to Action]

So I ask you tonight — not to hate your fellow countrymen who see this differently, but to refuse, absolutely, to make peace with an injustice simply because it is old, or profitable, or familiar.

Write to your representatives. Support those who will not bend on this question. Teach your children that liberty is not divisible — that it cannot belong to some men and not others and still call itself liberty at all.

I did not choose the easy road, and I will not pretend it is easy. But I would rather stand here, bruised and unbending, than sit comfortably and silent while three million of my fellow human beings are held as property.

[Closing]

Let it be said of this town, in this hall, on this night — that when the question was put, you did not look away. You chose justice. You chose freedom. And you chose it not because it was convenient, but because it was right.

I thank you for your hearing, and I ask for your hand in this work.

— Charles Sumner

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Sources

• American Battlefield Trust, "Charles Sumner" biography — basis for the account of the caning by Preston Brooks and Sumner's broader anti-slavery record

• American History, American Digital Collection — The Crime Against Kansas, Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, May 19, 1856 — basis for the reference to the two-day 1856 speech

AI Disclosure: I used Claude.ai as an assistant for research findings and for writing my script. I used key terms like "I am a college student" and "use professional style scripting rather than heavy academic style" in my prompting for this script. The images were found and embedded by me while the writing portion was done entirely by Claude.ai.

Slavery & Religion Challenge

The Slave Bible: For Slavery or Salvation?

Pro-Slavery

Traditional religions in the past have endorsed slavery whether it is through ancient texts or quoted from legitimate verses.

The Old Testament as Christian Scripture

The bible serves as a primary example of early slavery advocacy in direct biblical verses and in the New Testament. In Exodus 21:2-6, the Law of Moses outlined how God permitted the Israelites to take slaves from conquered peoples permanently, and that the Israelites could sell themselves into slavery temporarily to pay off debts. By creating rules for slavery alludes to the acceptance of its existence, rather than condemning the idea of an individual forced to choose freedom or abandoning his or her family.

In Leviticus 25:44-46, the verse states “As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves.” This specific verse outlines laws and regulations upon acquiring female and male slaves, while also implying that Israelites were permitted to purchase non-Israelite slaves from neighboring nations or from foreign temporary residents living inside Israel.

The passage also suggests that slaves who “may be your property” could possibly be inherited by future generations.

Lastly, Ephesians 6:5 further supports the endorsement of slavery through it acting as a ruleboard for enslaved individuals, stating "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." This demonstrates how normalized slavery was in society through the contents of the bible and in the life of Christianity.

But as much as the bible has verses upholding the laws of slavery, critics argue that it condemned slavery far more than it "praised" the act.

Anti-Slavery

Christians used the bible to argue against slavery because there were multiple verses in the book of the Bible that were focused on freedom and equality.

The Bible and Slavery

The Bible uses Genesis 1:27 to explain to us that all people are created equally in the eyes of God. The design being that all humans are equal and that every human has the same worth. The Bible also uses Galatians 3:28 which says that there is “neither slave nor free” because all Christians are one in Christ. This tests the ideas that enslaved people are supposed to be treated terribly compared to others.

In the book Philemon which is an independent book in the bible, Paul asks Philemon to embrace Onesimus who was a slave but is now “no longer a slave, but as a dear brother.” We learned just from this that we needed to be treating people who are or were enslaved with respect because that's the right Christian thing to do and who the Christians are.

All of these ideas were later used by the Christians to argue against how wrong slavery is and how it needed to be stopped. Christians played one of the biggest roles in the antislavery movements
especially when it came to the campaigns against the slave trades. The Bible does contain multiple verses about slavery but the teachings in the verses are about freedom and equality. 

The argument on whether or not the bible endorsed slavery is highly debatable considering the evidence from both sides of the claim overlapping in opinions. The bible didn't outwardly ban slavery but rather endorsed regulating/permitting the act without any moral defense. However, this can be outweighed by verses upholding the belief of freedom and equality.

Both of these arguments demonstrate how the bible contradicts itself in statements and verses regarding its moral code around slavery.

AI DISCLOSURE: AI was used in a limited way in this assignment. I used Claude AI to help me give ideas for my arguments and where to find sources. I added some of my own text and links.

Supreme Court Video Reflection

The Supreme Court doesn't operate the way most people assume. 

It doesn't go looking for problems to solve. It waits.

Cases don't simply appear on the docket. By the time one reaches the justices, it has already moved through a review process below. The Court is picking up a case that has been building for years, not starting fresh.

And here's something else people forget: the Court is open. Proceedings aren't hidden behind closed doors. But openness doesn't mean access on demand — the justices still can't act until someone brings them a case.

That single requirement shapes everything. The Supreme Court has no independent power to initiate action. It reacts. It rules. It waits again.

Presidents, meanwhile, hold enormous influence over where the Court goes — not through the cases themselves, but through nominations. Every appointment is a chance to shift the Court's direction for a generation.

That's how ideological control shifts over time. A majority on the bench today can become a minority tomorrow, one retirement or nomination at a time. The Court's balance is never permanent.

History shows how much weight a single ruling can carry. The Dred Scott decision stands as one of the starkest examples — a ruling whose consequences outlasted the justices who issued it.

And yet, for all its authority, the Court has no way to enforce what it decides.

No police force. No agents. No mechanism to compel compliance.

The Supreme Court depends entirely on other branches of government — and on public legitimacy — to make its rulings mean anything at all.

That's the paradox at the center of American judicial power: enormous influence, built on a system with almost no enforcement muscle of its own.

AI DISCLOSURE: AI was used in a limited way in this assignment. I used ample notes while watching a 20-minute video about the U.S Supreme Court. I then personalized those notes by adding my point of view, for example, things I found surprising or interesting about what I learned. I then used Claude AI to help me clean up the text for grammar, spelling and punctuation. I also asked the tool to help me shape it into the form or a blog post. I then edited the text, added links, and added images

Videos used in reference for this blog post: 

Part I, Part II