Brockman v. State

• Decision Date: 26 January 1953
• Docket Number: No. 38509,38509
• Citation: 216 Miss. 314,62 So.2d 362
• Parties: BROCKMAN v. STATE.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 362

62 So.2d 362

216 Miss. 314

BROCKMAN v. STATE.

No. 38509.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Jan. 26, 1953.

Sims & Sims, Columbus, for appellant.

J. P. Coleman, Atty. Gen., by Joe T. Patterson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

ARRINGTON, Justice.

The appellant, Will Brockman, alias Will Brockway, alias Eddie Edwards, was indicted, tried, and convicted in the Circuit Court of Lowndes County for the crime of murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the state penitentiary.

The evidence on the part of the state establishes the following facts: On Saturday night, April 29, 1950, the deceased, William James, and his wife were working in their grocery store located in the City of Columbus, Mississippi; that the appellant was a regular customer of the store, and on the night of the killing, he came into the store at approximately 8:30 P. M. and made a purchase of groceries from the wife of the deceased and had same charged to his account. The evidence shows that the appellant was working at the Wallin Lumber Company in Columbus, which was located on the same street at the grocery store and was approximately a block and a half or 600 feet from the store; that the appellant was employed as a fireman at the mill and on the night in question, he was working the hours from 2 o'clock P.M. until 10 o'clock P.M. According to the testimony of Mrs. James, wife of the deceased, she left the sotre around 9 o'clock P.M. to carry her children home, leaving the deceased counting his money; that she returned to the store in about fifteen minutes to get some articles which she had forgotten, and upon her return, she found her husband, the deceased, on the floor behind the counter dead.

One eyewitness, Bobbie Williams, a young negro boy 14 years of age at the time of the homicide, testified on the part of the state that he was sent to the grocery store of the deceased on the night of the shooting and that as he approached the store, he saw a man coming down the street; that this man entered the store just ahead of him and walked to the counter and asked Mr. James for some peas and eggs; that he, the eyewitness, went on to the meat counter and was looking at some meat. The deceased brought the peas and eggs and put them on the counter, and then he heard the appellant say, 'Mr. James, hand over your pocket took', to which the deceased replied, 'that what you come in here for?' The appellant asked the deceased again, and then shot him, running from the store immediately.

The appellant did not testify in his own behalf and did not offer any witnesses, resting his case at the conclusion of the state's evidence.

The appellant assigns and argues the following errors: (1) That the court erred in overruling appellant's motion for a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence; (2) that the court erred in overruling motion for new trial on the ground that the verdict of the jury was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence; (3) that the court erred in permitting the state's witness, Chief of Police Vickery, to testify to contradictory statements made by the appellant; and (4) that the court erred in refusing requested instruction for the appellant.

The court committed no error in overruling the motion for a new trial, based on the ground of newly discovered evidence not known before or during the trial, for the reason that it is well settled by the decisions of this Court that both the accused and his attorneys must make affidavit as to their ignorance of such facts, or testify on oath, that they...