# Minchin v. Docker

> District Court, District of Columbia · December 15, 1806 · 1 D.C. 370

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7376215

## Case

- **Full name:** Minchin v. Docker
- **Court:** District Court, District of Columbia
- **Decided:** December 15, 1806
- **Citations:** 1 D.C. 370
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Opinion of the court by Duckett
- **Judges:** Acts, Assembly, Cranch, Duckett, Fitzhugh, See
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7376215

## Opinion text

Duckett, J.,
said that persons born free, that is, descended from a white woman, were not, in Maryland, held to be negroes; and were permitted to testify against white persons. And although color is primé facie evidence of slavery, yet the fact that the witness had, for a long time, publicly acted as free, turned the presumption the other way, and was primé facie evidence that he was born of a white woman.
Cranch, C. J., concurred. (Fitzhugh, J., absent.) See the Acts of Assembly of Maryland, 1717, c. 13, § 2, and 1796, c. 67, §5.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7376215. Public record. Not legal advice.