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Despite repeated, often shouted questions, Prosecutor Griffin failed to shake her story. Why had she never "screamed, hollered, slapped or run" from Alligood? "Mr. Griffin, if you had been a woman, you wouldn't have known what to do either. I was scared." Why hadn't she reported Alligood's earlier advances? "In Washington, N.C., coming up as a black woman, it's different saying what you did and having your word go up against a white person's." Griffin took her over the painful details again and again. "Did you go down on your knees in front of the bunk?" he asked. When she did not respond, he shouted the question three more times, until she said softly, "He forced me down."
After the prisoner's testimony, many spectators expected a quick verdict. Indeed, three minutes after the jury left the courtroom to deliberate, Judge Hamilton Hobgood was giving a folksy thank-you speech to lawyers and reporters when he was interrupted by a knock on the door. But instead of a verdict, it was a juror with a question: "Where's the sugar for the coffee?" No matter. It took the six white and six black jurors only 1 hr. and 25 min. to reach the obvious decision: not guilty.