Although the People v. Sweet was a clear legal victory for Ossian, his wife, his friends and everyone else involved in the defense, the story as a whole was heartbreaking and a sad calamity for the Sweets. Not to mention the NAACP's failed initiative to argue the case in hopes that it might foreshadow a larger victory over residential segregation nationwide at the Supreme Court and perhaps even a civil rights movement. After Henry's acquittal, neither man spent a day in prison on the night of September 9, 1925, but both trials did not have the effect the NAACP intended and ended up playing an insignificant role in the overall picture of residential segregation and rights of minorities as a whole. After the trial of Henry Sweet, Robert Toms announced the end of the trials and People v. Sweet would never see another day in court. As much of a relief as it was to hear this, it was a small victory compared to the permanent damage the trials inflicted on the lives of the defendants, particularly Ossian Sweet. After their trip to Europe, when they were looking for a house to buy, Ossian and Gladys were both cultured and sophisticated1. Gladys through her education and Ossian through his extensive education and his choice of profession as a doctor were in a higher social bracket than most if not all residents in their prospective neighborhood of their newly purchased home. For Gladys this level of sophistication was not something sought after, it was simply an inherent quality of hers as a result of her family background. However for Ossian it was more than a conscious thought, for him it was a goal; appear more mature, more educated and overall wealthy. It also dictated the way he dressed: “So he preferred tailored suits, well… middle of paper… So the only remaining object of his success after the trial, the upkeep of the bungalow, was taken from him when he had to sell it to avoid foreclosure.1 Homeless Ossian was forced to live in his new office located in the ghetto, the very place where he refused to live more than thirty years earlier, risking everything. After all these difficulties, on March 20, 1960, at the age of sixty-four, Ossian Sweet committed suicide.2 The story of Ossian Sweet and the trials he, his family and his friends faced was a tribulation unlike any other The small victory of acquittal had virtually no effect no effect on the civil rights movement and only returned the defendants' lives permanently damaged It was a tragic example of how in an oppressive white supremacist society even when the minority wins, they lose, and in this case they lose everything..