Brown v. State
| Decision Date | 13 January 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 45143,45143 |
| Citation | 217 So.2d 521 |
| Parties | Joseph R. BROWN v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Rex K. Jones, Hattiesburg, for appellant.
Joe T. Patterson, Atty. Gen., by Guy N. Rogers, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
The appellant, Joseph R. Brown, was indicted, tried and convicted of the crime of accessory to the crime of attempted burglary in Forrest County, Mississippi, and was sentenced to serve a term of four years in the state penitentiary. He has appealed from this judgment and suggests that the trial court committed the following reversible errors:
(1) Appellant's constitutional rights under Article IV, Article VII, and Article VI of the Constitution of the United States were violated: (a) appellant was arrested without a warrant in Stone County, Mississippi by the sheriff of Forrest County, Mississippi; (b) he was held in jail under a demand for excessive bond.
(2) Certain personal property belonging to the appellant was wrongfully introduced in evidence against the appellant at the trial, over his objection that the property was obtained by an unlawful search without the use of a search warrant.
(3) The court erroneously granted the State an instruction informing the jury that it was not necessary for the officers to have a search warrant to search the motel room of appellant, because appellant was not at the room when he was arrested.
(4) Appellant contends that the State did not prove that the appellant aided Thomas Carroll, knowing that he was a felon.
The testimony in this case reveals that about two o'clock on the morning of September 16, 1967, Mr. James Reeves, a night watchman, was making his routine patrol around a nightclub known as the Capri Lounge. He discovered a young man attempting to break into the nightclub. He came within a short distance of the intruder and flashed his light on him. The intruder ran, and the night watchman fired his pistol. The intruder ran into a barbed wire fence and from that point there was a bloody trail for some distance. The intruder escaped, and the night watchman went back to the Capri Lounge and there discovered burglary tools and a hole cut in the metal building. The night watchman summoned the sheriff.
A deputy sheriff answered the summons of the night watchman and promptly notied the highway patrol. He took a plaster of paris cast of a footprint found at the scene of the attempted burglary. Near noon a young man staggered up to a florist shop and fainted in the presence of Mr. Wallace Delia, the nursery owner. This florist business is located about two miles south of the Capri Lounge. The young man was bloody, and told Mr. Delia that his companions had left him and that they had been on a beer drinking party. The witness attempted to take the young man to a hospital, but he asked Mr. Delia to take him to the Stables Motel. The witness observed a white pickup truck with a camper body on it in front of the cabin where the young man disembarked. Mr. Delia notified the sheriff as to what had occurred.
A witness at the Stables Motel informed the officers that the pickup truck had gone toward Wiggins. The sheriff promptly communicated this information to the sheriff of Stone County, and a highway patrolman, having heard this communication intercepted the truck and held the suspects until the sheriff of Forrest County arrived.
When the sheriff of Forrest County asked defendant Brown and his companion where the third man was who had been taken to the hospital, they refused to inform the officers as to the location of the wounded person. Two witnesses testified that the defendant said that he had taken the wounded man to the hospital but that later he had hid him and was not going to tell them where he was.
The sheriff of Forrest County started back to Hattiesburg with the defendant and his companion, but before they reached Hattiesburg they learned by radio communication that the Stone County officers had located the wounded suspect. The sheriff of Forrest County immediately returned to Wiggins and went to the F & A Motel, where he found the wounded suspect in custody of the sheriff of Stone County. The officers found in the room separate bags of clothing which contained the names of all three persons. A pair of shoes was found, and the wounded suspect took charge of these shoes. It developed later that one of these shoes fitted the track discovered at the scene of the attempted burglary. The sheriff of Stone County arrested the wounded suspect without a warrant and turned him over to the sheriff of Forrest County, Mississippi.
Before the trial the defendant made several motions, one of which was a motion to reduce the defendant's bail bond. The trial court sustained this motion and reduced the amount of the bail to $7,500. It is true, of course, that the United States Constitution and the Mississippi Constitution guarantee that excessive bail bonds shall not be required, and if excessive bail is required, it is considered tantamount to a denial of bail. The amount of bail required is largely a matter within the sound discretion of the trial judge. The judge must, of course, take into consideration whether or not the person is entitled to bail under the law, and if so, the circumstances and the ability of the person, his poverty, the atrocity of the offense, the sex, probability of his appearing for trial, and his character and reputation. Ex parte Oliver, 127 Miss. 208, 89 So. 915 (1921).
In every case, however, the amount should not be unreasonably large. On appeal to this Court, however, the presumption exists that the court properly exercised its discretion with reference to the amount of the bond. Street v. State, 43 Miss. 1 (1870).
The appellant's contention that he was not given a speedy trial is now moot. He has been given a trial, and although it appears that the defendant was held for some time because of his inability to make a bond, this time is deductible from his sentence; moreover, all cases cannot be tried at once. The docket of a trial court must be handled in an orderly manner. The defendant was arrested in September 1967, indicted November 1967, and tried in March 1968. There is no showing that the defendant did not get a speedy trial. See 21 Am.Jur.2d Criminal Law § 242 (1965); United States v. Ewell,383 U.S. 116, 86 S.Ct. 773, 15 L.Ed.2d 627 (1966); Nixon v. State, 10 Miss. (2 Smedes & M.) 497 (1844).
The argument that the sheriff of Forrest County had no authority to arrest the defendant in Stone County and for that reason the defendant should be acquitted is not a ground of defense for the charge of accessory to attempted burglary, but if it were, it would not aid the appellant in his defense,...
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