 The prosecution of Shipp was allowed to proceed.Justice Peckham, joined by Justices White and McKenna, dissented on the grounds that the only evidence for Shipp's criminal actions were the analysis from his testimony, which was circumstantial at best.Peckham argued that "To be free from any contempt of this Court, it was not necessary that the sheriff should have stood by the prisoner at the peril of his own life, or that he should have sacrificed it in an unsuccessful attempt against overwhelming odds to prevent the mob from taking the prisoner out of his custody."