Brannon v. State

• Decision Date: 07 April 1947
• Docket Number: 36409.
• Citation: 29 So.2d 916,202 Miss. 571
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: BRANNON v. STATE.

29 So.2d 916

202 Miss. 571

BRANNON v. STATE.

No. 36409.

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 7, 1947

H. V. Watkins and Wm. A. Bacon, both of Jackson and Ben Wilkes, of Greenville, for appellant.

Greek L. Rice, Atty. Gen., and Geo. H. Ethridge Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

L. A. SMITH, SR., Justice.

The Circuit Court of Holmes County was in regular session and engaged upon the trial of the case of the State of Mississippi v. W. J. Dodd et al., in which case a group of men were being prosecuted for the slaying of one McAtee. The judge had instructed that all of the witnesses be retired from the courtroom; those for the State to be taken to one room; and those for the defendant to another room; and the witnesses were told not to talk to anyone except their lawyers. The rule had been invoked.

The appellant, a newspaper woman, owned and published two local newspapers in Holmes County; was special correspondent for two press associations of national scope; and local correspondent of the Commercial Appeal, a popular Southern metropolitan daily and Sunday newspaper of Memphis Tennessee. She was not present when the trial judge issued the above instructions, but, having received a telegraphic query from the Commercial Appeal, she entered the courtroom in order to report the case being tried. Henrietta McAtee, the widow of the slain man, was testifying. Appellant took notes of her testimony as it was delivered, and after the witness left the stand, and was on the way downstairs to the witness room to which she had been assigned, appellant followed her for the purpose of checking the correctness of one point in her notes. A deputy sheriff, accompanying the witness, intervened to prevent appellant from talking to the McAtee woman. This was the State's case. The deputy testified:

'Q. What did you do? A. I went and told Henrietta: 'I told you to go in the Sheriff's office,' and I told Miss Hazel--I didn't call her name; 'You can't talk to the witness by order of the court.'

'Q. Did you tell her that was the court's instructions? A. I told Henrietta to go on in the sheriff's office and Miss Hazel said: 'You haven't got her under arrest, she is a free woman and you and the sheriff and nobody else can keep me from talking to her,' and I told the Negro woman to go on in the sheriff's office, and Miss Hazel said: 'I am going to talk to her,' and I come back up to the courtroom and reported it to the judge and the sheriff.'

Henrietta McAtee at once went on back into the sheriff's office whence she was later recalled for redirect examination as a witness by the State. Appellant immediately left the scene. The appellant gave this account of the encounter between her and the deputy: 'I said: 'How come she can't talk to me? She is not under arrest and I reckon she can talk to anybody she wants to,' and he shook his head. He shook his head and said: 'I am just telling you what Walter said.'' ('Walter' was Mr. Murtagh, the sheriff). In answer to a question about what she did when the deputy walked away, appellant replied: 'There was really only one question that wasn't clear. I had already asked her that when Mr. Nabors came up. After he walked away, I returned to my office and I turned to Henrietta and said: 'Keep your chin up." There is no contradiction of this testimony of appellant, by anyone. In the meantime, court was proceeding with the trial upstairs without hindrance, so far as disclosed by the record.

However, the deputy made his report, and the district attorney filed a sworn Information of Criminal Contempt, based on the above incident, which charged 'That all of the above stated was then and there done by the said Miss Hazel Brannon in an attempt to embarrass said court in the performance of its duties and to hinder and impair the orderly progress and function of the said trial, and is an act denounced by the Laws of the State of Mississippi and was and is an expression of contempt of this Honorable Court.'

To this information, appellant filed a sworn and categorical denial of the above charges, setting out her side of the events, and stated among other things: 'The defendant, on the contrary, alleges that her actions at the time in question were motivated by nothing except a desire to secure a check of the statements of a witness,' and further that 'she did not intend any violation of any rule of the court, nor did she intend to embarrass, humiliate, hinder or delay any officer of the court in the performance of any duty. The defendant further states that she enters an apology to the court for any action which she may have taken which in the eyes of the court appears to be a contempt.'

It will be borne in mind that appellant was not in the courtroom when the court separated and instructed the witnesses, and that she had no further conversation with the witness, Henrietta McAtee, after having been admonished by the deputy, except to say to the widow of the slain man, 'Keep your chin up.'

At the ancient common law, the filing of a sworn disclaimer of the acts specified in the Information of Contempt, together with an answer and apology under oath, prohibited the court from hearing other proof on the subject. The Attorney General correctly argues, however, that 'the practice in this State does not accord with the ancient common law rule that a person might discharge himself of contempt committed in the absence of the court or out of the presence of the court by making answer under oath.' O'Flynn v. State, 89 Miss. 850, 43 So. 82, 9 L.R.A., N.S., 1119; 119 Am.St.Rep. 727, 11 Ann.Cas. 530. Contrition and apology now suffice merely to ameliorate the offense, and to mitigate the punishment. Ex parte Redmond, 156 Miss. 582, 126 So. 485. So, the court properly heard the witnesses on both sides of the controversy, eliciting the foregoing excerpts therefrom.

At the end of this hearing, appellant was found guilty by the trial judge, and the following final judgment was entered: 'This cause having come on this day to be heard and the court having heard all the evidence offered by both the State of Mississippi and the Defendant in this cause doth hereby find the Defendant Hazel Brannon guilty of contempt of the Circuit Court of Holmes County, Mississippi, and does hereby sentence the said Defendant to pay a fine of fifty dollars ($50.00) and serve a term of fifteen days in the Holmes County Jail. Said sentence is however hereby suspended conditioned on the Defendant not violating any of the laws of the State of Mississippi, The United States of America, any municipality fo the State of Mississippi, and any rule of the Circuit Court of Holmes County, for the period of the next two years.'

It must be noted that this judgment merely found appellant guilty of contempt. It did not recite the substantial acts or the detailed events constituting the contempt. We point this out at this time for the reason that, upon adjudging appellant guilty, the court administered a reprimand, containing statements from which it might be inferred that she was convicted of direct contempt on account of things said or done in the presence of the judge, although she was on trial for constructive contempt only. The trial judge said: 'The Court is of the opinion that you are guilty as charged. I sympathize with you and sorry you got in this mess, but you brought it on yourself. I realize you are putting on a great campaign for law and order but if you read history you will see that the only perfect being didn't make much of a hit with his reform. He reformed a few and left this advice 'Before you clean up someone else clean up yourself' so few of us pure are left. I...