Assault by Leer, Concluded

"If, by ... looking at a person in a leering manner, or watching and then following, one causes another to become frightened and run, then he is guilty of assault," said the judge to the jury in the superior court in Yanceyville, N.C. last November. The all-white jury promptly found Mack Ingram, a Negro farmer, guilty of "assault" against Willa Jean Boswell, daughter of a neighboring white farmer--even though everybody agreed that Willa Jean had safely run off across a cornfield, and Ingram was never closer than 50 feet to her (TIME, July 23, 1951).

Last week, on appeal the North Carolina state supreme court resoundingly reversed the lower-court conviction. Said the supreme court: even if Ingram had leered (which he denied), there had been "no overt act, no threat of violence ... We cannot convict him . . . solely for what may have been on his mind. Human law does not reach that far."

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