Buchanan v. State

• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: TRULY, J.
• Citation: Buchanan v. State, 84 Miss. 332, 36 So. 388 (Miss. 1904)
• Decision Date: 18 April 1904
• Parties: ROBERT L. BUCHANAN v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

36 So. 388

84 Miss. 332

ROBERT L. BUCHANAN v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 18, 1904

March 1904

FROM the circuit court of, first district, Chickasaw county. HON EUGENE O. SYKES, Judge.

Buchanan the appellant, was indicted for the murder of one Dehay tried and convicted of manslaughter, sentenced to the penitentiary for fifteen years, and appealed to the supreme court.

Judgment affirmed.

T. J. Buchanan, and Mayes & Longstreet, for appellant.

A. T. Stovall, and J. N. Flowers, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.

Argued orally by Edward Mayes, and T. J. Buchanan, for appellant, and by A. T. Stovall, for appellee.

OPINION

TRULY, J.

Very many assignments of error are presented to the court. Some of them do not appear in the record. Others are in reference to the action of the court in drawing the special venire. As it is firmly fixed that the laws in this regard are simply directory, and as it is not contended that he was not tried by a fair and impartial jury, we cannot see that any harm was done the appellant.

The assignment most strongly relied on is that the proof is not sufficient to sustain a conviction of manslaughter. It is earnestly contended that the verdict of the jury should be set aside and the case reversed on the facts. The testimony adduced on the part of the state, if believed by the jury considered in connection with the environment and attendant circumstances of the homicide, the location of the wounds upon the body of the deceased, and the range of the fatal bullet, are amply sufficient to sustain this conviction. The jury had the witnesses...