Jerry v. Townshend

Mason, J., delivered the following opinion, affirming the judgment: In the case of a petition for freedom, tire issue being freedom vel non, and not title to the negro, any party who may be in the possession of the negro, and who may be the party defendant to the suit, may offer any legal evidence to defeat the negro’s petition. It matters not, therefore, whether the defendant in this proceeding had been duly appointed administrator pendente lite or not, he was in the possession of the petitioners, and it was therefore competent for him to defeat, if he could, by any legal evidence, their claim to freedom. The incompetency of the grantor, from mental unsoundness, to execute a valid deed of manumission, is surely a sufficient ground to defeat such deed, and as we have said in the case of Townshend vs. Townshend, 5 Md. Rep., 287, that the question of freedom vel non, in whatever aspect it may be presented, must, by our statutes, be determined upon a petition for freedom, it follows, necessarily, that every matter which may be sufficient to defeat the petitioner’s claim, whether it be in the nature of an equitable or legal defence, can be given in evidence under a petition for freedom. A petition for freedom is a proceeding under our statutes, and not one at common law, and therefore the principles announced in Key vs. Davis, 1 Md. Rep., 32 , do not apply to such a proceeding.

From what has been said the ruling of the court upon the appellants’ first exception was a matter of no importance, and the question, however determined, could not have changed the result. We therefore decline to reverse upon this exception. Clarke vs. State, use of Darnall, 8 G. & J., 111 . It also follows that there can be no objection to the ruling of the court upon the appellants’ second exception, and we affirm it.

The defendant simply proposed to show by competent witnesses, that at the date of the aforesaid deed the said ¹⁵⁸ Townshend was of unsound mind, &c. This we have said it was competent for the defendant to do upon this proceeding. While wé are not prepared to say that in all cases evidence is admissible which tends to show unsoundness of mind subsequent to the period at which the insanity is alleged to exist, yet there are many instances where such evidence would be admissible, and this would depend very much upon the character of the insanity in question. In the case before us it will be observed, that the witness whose testimony is objected to, as disclosed in the third exception, had given evidence to which no objection had or could be taken, namely, evidence of the state of Townshend’s mind previous to, and at. the time of the execution of the deed.

The record then proceeds to say, “in continuance of this witness’s testimony the defendants proposed to offer, by the same mtness, evidence of other similar conversations and acts of John Townshend subsequent to the execution of the deed of 1831, to throw light upon the state of his mind at the time of the execution of said deed.” This evidence, we think, was properly received, because it tended to show the nature and character of the insanity under which the party was supposed to labor. Tt was not the testimony of an isolated witness, which related alone to independent facts subsequent to the period involved in the issue. In such a case it might have been a question how far the