Courts nullified segregation statutes when blood quantum fell short

Evidence

In 1885, Isaac Jones successfully appealed his conviction and almost three-year sentence for feloniously marrying a white woman on the grounds that he was less than “one quarter black” as required by the Virginia statute. The Court explicitly declared Jones a “mulatto of brown skin” and his mother “a yellow woman” while admitting his “blood quantum” amounted to less than that statutorily necessitated. — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 100

Categorization

• CANDY: A striking legal curiosity: a man convicted of feloniously marrying a white woman won his appeal by proving his ‘blood quantum’ was too low to count as black under the statute.