Justice in Water Valley

When Sheriff J. G. (for James Gray) Treloar was accused of beating up and fatally injuring a Negro prisoner in his jail, few in north Mississippi's red clay Yalobusha County expected much to come of it. But when a grand jury indicted Treloar for manslaughter, white citizens in the county seat of Water Valley moved fast. Remembering the "bad publicity" of the Emmett Till case three years before in neighboring Tallahatchie County (TIME, Oct. 3, 1955), they dissuaded Water Valley Negroes from hiring an N.A.A.C.P. lawyer, instead chipped in for a white attorney to act as the district attorney's special prosecutor.

As the trial opened, 500 spectators jammed the county courthouse, saw the lawyers and Till-Case Circuit Judge Curtis Swango select an all-white jury. Nearly everyone in Water Valley (1950 pop. 3,213) knew the dead prisoner, Woodrow Wilson Daniel, 37. Many remembered him as a grocery delivery boy and as a dependable bootlegger for both races. Everyone also knew that Sheriff "Buster" Treloar, 36, who campaigned on a prohibition platform, had kept an eye on Daniel since Daniel, three months earlier, was acquitted of a bootlegging charge. And nearly everyone in town knew that Sheriff Treloar had hauled in Daniel one night last June along with bottles of "evidence" that contained disputed portions of water and whisky.

A white woman jailed at the same time on a forgery charge testified that she saw Treloar walk into the cell and hit Daniel "ten or twelve times" with a club. Another white prisoner testified that on another occasion the sheriff caught Daniel "hollering out a window," clubbed him "three or four times." Respected Dr. Maubry McMillan, summoned at midnight to treat the stricken Daniel in jail, said Treloar told him: "I had to tap him on the head." Another physician testified that Daniel died nine days later of a brain hemorrhage.

Sheriffs from a dozen neighboring counties sat together in the courtroom to show their regard for lanky (6 ft. 2 in.) Buster Treloar. Encouraged, Sheriff Treloar admitted on the stand that he had rapped Daniel once to make him behave after his arrest for bootlegging and speeding, and that in the jail he had tapped Daniel three or four times on the shoulder and buttocks. Sure, he also nudged him with a toe to sit up for Dr. McMillan. Argued one of Treloar's four attorneys: "You are not trying him for whipping somebody. You're trying him for killing somebody."

After 26 minutes, the jury found Treloar not guilty. The sheriff winked at his pretty wife, accepted congratulations from fellow sheriffs, retrieved his blackjack from the evidence table. Said he: "Now, by God, I can get back to rounding up bootleggers and niggers."

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