In Philadelphia, U.S. Justice Grier rebels against piracy cases interrupting U.S. District Court business

Supreme Court Justice Robert Cooper Grier had a few weeks earlier sentenced several blockade runners to death as pirates in the Enchantress Case. Facing another such trial, that of two officers of the blockade runner Petrel, he spoke strongly and openly in court that he was not in favor of treating prisoners captured at sea any differently from those captured on land. He would no longer delay other important cases due to the increasing load of piracy cases.  The U.S. reclassified blockade runners as prisoners of war a few months later.  (By John Osborne)  
Source Citation
J.Thomas Scharf and Thompson Wescott, History of Philadelphia 1609-1884, in three volumes (Philadelphia, PA: L.H. Everts & Co., 1884), II: 786. 
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Lawmaking/Litigating
    How to Cite This Page: "In Philadelphia, U.S. Justice Grier rebels against piracy cases interrupting U.S. District Court business ," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/38130.