Ed Johnson, a black man, had been convicted in Hamilton County, Tennessee, of the rape of a white woman on February 11, 1906, and sentenced to death.

On March 3, 1906, Johnson's lawyer Noah W. Parden filed a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that his constitutional rights had been violated.

He further argued that he had been substantively denied the right to counsel, as his lawyer at the time had been too intimidated by the threats of mob violence to file motions for a change of venue, a continuance, or a new trial, all of which could be reasonably expected under the circumstances.

However, despite being advised of the ruling by telegram on that date and the case and the ruling being given full coverage by Chattanooga's evening newspapers that day, Shipp and his chief jailer nonetheless allowed a mob to enter the Hamilton County Jail and to lynch Johnson on the city's Walnut Street Bridge.

Ninety-four years after the lynching, in February 2000, Hamilton County Criminal Judge Doug Meyer overturned Johnson's conviction after hearing arguments that Johnson did not receive a fair trial because of the all-white jury and the judge's refusal to move the trial from Chattanooga, where there was much publicity about the case.

[8] On April 15, 2016, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a resolution, commending the valor of Johnson's legal defense and the federal intervention by President Theodore Roosevelt, the Justice Department and the Supreme Court and deploring the actions of Shipp and the lynch mob which he abetted in the "untimely lynching of Mr. Ed Johnson.