Anderson v. State

• Decision Date: 13 April 1908
• Docket Number: 13,030
• Citation: 46 So. 65,92 Miss. 656
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: MONROE ANDERSON ET AL. v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

46 So. 65

92 Miss. 656

MONROE ANDERSON ET AL. v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

No. 13,030

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 13, 1908

FROM the circuit court of Amite county, HON. MOYSE H. WILKINSON Judge.

Anderson and others, appellants, negroes, were indicted for an assault and battery with intent to kill and murder one Bates, a white man. They moved for a change of venue, their motion was denied; they were tried and convicted and appealed to the supreme court. The facts developed on the hearing of the motion for a change of venue, the only point decided by the supreme court, are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment reversed and case remanded.

R. N. &amp H. B. Miller, for appellants.

The evidence taken on the motion for change of venue overwhelmingly shows and practically without dispute that when young Bates got shot in that difficulty he was very badly hurt, his lower jaw being shot away, and he was utterly disfigured and ruined for life. There was much feeling on the subject in the community and there was a meeting largely attended held at the court house, and these defendants were arrested and put in jail. This meeting resolved to lynch these negroes and were only prevailed upon by the kindly hearted, justice-loving sheriff by hard work to desist. There were numbers of meetings or gatherings of the people in all parts of the county and nearly every man in that county had prejudged this case.

When the motion was being tried there was a vast throng of people in truth and in fact, it is believed, ready to lynch defendants, that is many people willing to lynch them if they should be granted a change of venue, and we confidently believe after reading this record that the judge overruled it believing that course was necessary to save the defendants' lives. Under this condition of things to sustain the finding of the court in forcing these poor creatures to a trial under these awful conditions in Amite county, would be, to quote the language of Justice WHITFIELD in a celebrated case in our own reports, to establish "Too dangerous a doctrine, surely, to find any place in jurisprudence framed under bills of rights in which, in the land of their origin, the right to maintain inviolate the jury trial, has been written in blood with the point of the sword, as the final declaration of freemen on the subject."

R. V. Fletcher, attorney general, for appellee.

A review of the testimony shows that the talk about lynching is the result of vain imaginings, that the community at Liberty was somewhat excited at the time of the shooting, and some meetings were held for the purpose of aiding in the capture of the criminals. At one of these meetings some irresponsible individual suggested lynching but the suggestion was promptly vetoed by the sober and conservative element in charge of affairs. The case is one where the following language used by this court is strikingly applicable:

"The record is barren of any proof showing any prejudice or ill will towards the appellant or any prejudgment of this case in the public mind. The excitement in the village where the offense was committed was only the indignation naturally aroused in any community by the commission of an atrocious crime; but this excitement was neither widespread nor of long duration, and after it subsided the public awaited calmly the decision of the courts." Butler v. State, 39 So. 1005.

OPINION

WHITFIELD, C. J.

The appellant, Anderson, in conjunction with eight other negroes was indicted for committing assault and battery upon W. H. Bates unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously with a rifle and pistols, with intent to kill and murder the said Bates. Anderson, appellant, and Mack Taplin and Charley Gayden, were jointly tried, and all convicted and sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary, and have all prosecuted this appeal to this court.

In the progress of the trial, a motion for change of venue was made by the appellants, in conformity with provisions of the statute on that subject, and on the hearing of that motion much testimony was taken. Each of the three judges of this court has severally read all of the testimony taken on the motion for change of venue. We might briefly summarize this testimony, in order to show that it is overwhelmingly demonstrated that the motion for change of venue should have been sustained. The testimony of Ive Morgan was to the effect that, if the right men should be got on the jury, there might be a fair and impartial trial; that he based this opinion on the good citizenship of the county, and what he meant by a fair and impartial trial was a trial in which a man should prove that he was innocent. G. H. Barney testified that a fair and impartial trial could not be had in the county, and that was his idea after going around over the county generally. Hollis Jones testified that defendants could not get a fair and impartial trial, and that pretty nearly every one he had heard express himself said that they were guilty and, further, that he believed everybody in the county had heard something about the case. Ashley Reynolds testified that he had heard a heap of talk about the case, and that the only way to get a fair and impartial trial would be for some one who knew how to pick the jury. Ben Griffith testified that nearly everybody in the county knew of the facts in the case, and that the people in general had prejudged the case and when pressed, on cross-examination, as to whether the crowd in which a motion was made to hang the negroes did not fight that motion down, he said: "They finally fought it down, but it was against the will of the people." William Whittaker testified that he thought the general public had prejudged the...