all-white jury was unable to reach a verdict. The retrial began on April 19th, 1926. This time, the only defendant was Henry Sweet, Ossian’s brother. The Defense had changed their tactics and demanded that the defendants be tried separately. The Prosecution chose to begin with Henry’s case. He had admitted to firing a gun, although claimed to have shot high to disperse the angry mob.
As part of the Defense case, Darrow called Dr. Ossian Sweet. The lawyer asked him to describe his state of mind. Dr. Sweet answered, “[w]hen I opened the door and saw the mob I realized I was facing the same mob that hounded my people throughout its entire history.” Through questioning, Darrow drew a picture for the white, male jury of the mindset of those inside the house. The prosecution objected to the testimony going back across Dr. Sweet’s entire life. Darrow argued that the defendant’s actions could only be understood through a psychology built upon his history. The judge sided with the Defense. Permitting this psychological “state of mind” evidence was extremely rare at the time.
In closing, Clarence Darrow asked the white men comprising the jury to become African-American.
“Now, let us look at these fellows. Here were eleven colored men, penned up in the house. Put yourselves in their place. Make yourselves colored for a little while. It won’t hurt, you can wash it off. They can’t, but you can; just make yourselves black men for a little while; long enough, gentlemen, to judge them, and before any of you would want to be judged, you would want your juror to put himself in your place. That is all I ask in this case, gentlemen. They were black, and they knew the history of the black.
The jury did, acquitting Henry Sweet. The District Attorney subsequently dropped the charges against the other defendants.
The Sweets’ story does not have a storybook ending. Gladys Sweet died of tuberculosis, a disease she believed that she contracted while in jail. Ossian Sweet committed suicide in 1960. Henry also died of tuberculosis.
The case shined a light on the stressors which made up the mindset of even successful African-Americans in the 1920’s. It upheld their rights to protect their lives and homes with force if necessary. The Arc of Justice, a 2004 book by Kevin Boyle about the events, won the National Book Award.
An ordinary red-brick house on Garland Avenue in Detroit. Curie, Du Bois, Darrow, and Murphy, some of the profound names of the Jazz Age came together in the case of Henry Sweet. The ordinary comingled with the extraordinary—the Sweet case is my Trial of the Month for April.