The Supreme Court's renunciation of Speer's at empt to outlaw the misdemeanor convict leasing system was so complete that the opinion was not even writ en, but issued summarily and oral y. Among the thousands of words of Judge Jones's famous direction to the federal jury on the de nitions of legal and il egal labor practices, a single sentence ultimately rose to greatest prominence. Jones advised that persons convicted of misdemeanors whose Jones advised that persons convicted of misdemeanors whose sureties "confessed judgment" for them and worked them against their wil could avoid violating the peonage statue by fol owing a simple procedure. The laborers must be convicted in an authentic court— not by any bumpkin justice of the peace. The judgment and penalty had to be writ en down and recorded with the local courts. And the contract between the defendant and the person paying the ne—in which the defendant agreed to work for a certain amount of time to pay o the penalty— had to be signed "in open court with writ en approval of the judge." The implication was clear.
