Biography
Joseph Mack, Ossian Sweet's chauffeur, was one of eleven Black occupants arrested in Detroit on September 9, 1925, after defending the Sweet home against a white mob attacking the house in a previously white neighborhood. The prosecution became a major test of Black residents' right to defend their homes against racist violence. He was held in jail before trial. The history quotes Arthur Garfield Hays describing the male defendants as having already spent sixty days in a city jail, and Clarence Darrow finding all the male defendants still jailed when he visited. This establishes substantial actual detention; exact individual admission and bail-release dates and total duration remain unverified.
Joseph Mack, Ossian Sweet's chauffeur, was one of eleven Black occupants arrested in Detroit on September 9, 1925, after defending the Sweet home against a white mob attacking the house in a previously white neighborhood. The prosecution became a major test of Black residents' right to defend their homes against racist violence. He was held in jail before trial. The history quotes Arthur Garfield Hays describing the male defendants as having already spent sixty days in a city jail, and Clarence Darrow finding all the male defendants still jailed when he visited. This establishes substantial actual detention; exact individual admission and bail-release dates and total duration remain unverified. The joint trial ended in a mistrial. Following Henry Sweet's separate acquittal, prosecutor Robert M. Toms requested abandonment of the remaining prosecutions in July 1927. A potential life sentence was not imposed or served.
