Legal Proceedings

Duluth District Judge William Cant convened a grand jury investigation on June 17, two days after the lynchings. Identifying the leaders and instigators of the massive lynch mob proved difficult. Some Duluthians were sympathetic to those seen as merely “caught in the moment” and giving into the mob mentality.

In the following weeks, the grand jury issued thirty-seven indictments for whites implicated in the lynch mob: twenty-five for rioting and twelve for the crime of murder in the first degree. Some people received indictments for both offenses. Eight whites were tried. Four were acquitted and one trial resulted in a hung jury.

Three of the whites — Louis Dondino, Carl Hammerberg, and Gilbert Stephenson — were convicted for rioting. Each served less than fifteen months in prison. No one was convicted of murder.

Seven Black men, all laborers from the John Robinson Circus, were indicted by the grand jury for the crime of rape. The NAACP hired three Black attorneys — Frederick Barnett Jr., Charles W. Scrutchin, and R. C. McCullough — to defend these men in court.

For five of the indicted Black men, charges were dismissed. The remaining two, Max Mason and William Miller, were tried for rape. William Miller was acquitted. Max Mason was convicted and sentenced to serve seven to thirty years in prison.

Mason appealed his case to the Minnesota Supreme Court but was unsuccessful. He began his sentence at Stillwater State Prison in 1921.