Identifying and locating all of the cases handled by J. Steward
Davis has been accomplished using two sources. The Afro-American
frequently reported on the cases he was handling. Approximately 100 cases
in which Davis was involved are mentioned. The bulk of the cases identified
however come from page-by-page search of the individual court dockets,
looking for which attorneys are listed.
Articles about Davis' cases from the Afro-American, 1919-1929, as collected by Larry Gibson
Spreadsheet of newspaper articles
Each year that Davis practiced, the following dockets are searched:
Baltimore City Circuit Court
Equity Docket A
Equity Docket B
Baltimore City Circuit Court No. 2
Equity Docket A
Equity Docket B
Baltimore City Court
Cases Instituted
Petition Docket
Habeas Corpus Docket
Baltimore City Superior Court
Cases Instituted
Baltimore City Court of Common Pleas
Cases Instituted
Baltimore City Criminal Court
Criminal Docket
In addition, the Orphan's Court dockets for 1915-1929 have been searched. It is possible that additional dockets will be identified for searching as research progress.
Cases identified from the Afro-American and from the dockets are noted and abstracted on the html page for each year. They are also entered into the Davis cases spreadsheet. In addition, these docket (and their indexes) were checked for cases naming Davis as defendant. Some of the cases against Davis occurred in the course of practicing law (while serving as administrator of an estate, for example), but many were part of his own legal troubles. These cases are listed with the other cases from that year, but also in a list of cases against Davis. Some of these cases were located in dockets which were not part of the general docket search, such as Confessed Judgment cases in Superior and City Courts; these dockets do not list the appearance of lawyers.
After cases are identified from the dockets the case papers are pulled. Cases from 1928-1929, as well as a few scattered earlier cases, have been scanned, with the exception of some criminal cases. Otherwise, case papers are in clamshells sorted by year and court at 1/53/7/--. For cases where additional materials are available, such as appeals to the Supreme Bench or City Solicitor's files, this information has been gathered.
Potential sources of under-count:
-Articles in the Afro-American indicate that Davis argued cases in the various Police Courts. The cases which were written about in the newspaper have been found (or attempted to locate). However, Police Dockets do not note the appearance of attorneys, so it is impossible to know how many additional cases Davis handled in these courts.
-In one case identified by the Afro-American, Davis represented complainants in a criminal case, which is not noted in the Criminal Docket (State v. Boyer, State v. Edwards, and State v. St. John, 1927). Any other cases like that would similarly be impossible to identify through the dockets. There are also cases which the Afro-American says Davis acted as an attorney for the defendant in criminal trials where his appearance is not noted in the docket.
-Coverage in the Afro-American indicates that Davis argued cases in People's Court and Traffic Court, as well as in Federal Court. Records of these trials are not available at MSA, and cannot be searched for additional cases.
-There is a notable degree of variability of how Davis' name is written. He is refered to as C. Steward Davis, J. Stewart Davis, etc. In addition, during the early part of his career, he was sometimes called simply Steward (or Stewart) Davis. It should be noted that while he was often listed as J.S. Davis, there were no other people with those initials practicing law in Baltimore during that time.