Buford v. State, 38973
| Decision Date | 25 January 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 38973,38973 |
| Citation | 219 Miss. 683,69 So.2d 826 |
| Parties | BUFORD v. STATE. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
P. A. Martin, Jr., Fulton, for appellant.
J. P. Coleman, Atty. Gen., by Joe T. Patterson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The appellant was tried in the Circuit Court of Itawamba County on an indictment charging him with the murder of Henderson Nelson. The jury found him guilty as charged but disagreed as to his punishment, and he was accordingly sentenced to imprisonment in the state penitentiary for life. He prosecutes this appeal from the judgment of conviction.
The sole contention on this appeal is that the proof aliunde the confession of the accused is insufficient to establish the corpus delicti, and that, therefore, the evidence is insufficient to support the conviction, and that appellant's motion for a new trial based upon this ground should have been sustained. The solution of the question presented necessitates a brief review of the evidence.
The case is unusual in that while the appellant confessed that he shot the deceased with a 22 pistol, an autopsy performed on the body of the deceased and a subsequent X-ray examination of the body revealed neither a point of exit of the bullet nor the presence of the bullet in the body, and a reputable surgeon testified that in his opinion the deceased was struck by some sharp object and not a gun and that something else besides a bullet caused his death.
The state's proof showed substantially the following: The deceased was a Spanish-American war veteran. He was over 70 years of age and lived alone in his own home located in a rural section of Itawamba County just off of Highway 25. He appears to have had few associates and lived more or less the life of a recluse. He did his own cooking in his yard, where, at a distance of ten or fifteen steps from his house, he had erected a frame consisting of one upright post and two supporting pieces, which he apparently used for the suspension of his cooking utensils. His near neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Bennett, who lived about 200 yards from him. Mr. Bennett operated a store in the vicinity. The deceased was last seen alive on the afternoon of Friday, May 2, 1952, when Mrs. Bennett observed him going to her husband's store, and again saw him as he was returning from the store with what appeared to be a sack of groceries in his hand. He stopped at his mail box and then disappeared from Mrs. Bennett's view as he went toward his home. Shortly thereafter, she heard a shot fired in the direction of the deceased's home. She feared that Mr. Nelson might have shot her dog, but on calling her dog, he came and she went back to her house. Mr. Bennett saw the deceased when he reached the store and sold him a can of tomatoes and a can of peaches which were placed in a sack and which the deceased carried away in his hand when he left the store. The deceased paid cash for these articles. He carried his wallet in his shirt pocket which had a flap on it and which he customarily kept pinned with a safety pin, and on this occasion he temporarily unpinned the flap for the purpose of removing his money.
In the early afternoon of Saturday, May 3, 1952, Ted Reese, a resident of the vicinity, found the dead body of the deceased. He was lying on his back in a pool of blood with his hat on, near the center post of the frame which he had erected in his yard. His right arm was around the post as though he had tried to support himself as he fell. Near his right hand was a raw Irish potato. He had a wound in his left side about four inches below the arm pit. The flap on his shirt pocket was unpinned and his wallet was gone. A safety pin was found on the ground between his body and his left arm. He had bled profusely from his mouth. He was stiff and the blood had caked on his face. On the arrival of the officers and upon an inspection of the premises, they found on the deceased's porch the sack containing the can of peaches and the can of tomatoes. They searched the deceased and removed from his person a dime, a watch, a piece of rope, and a lug off an automobile tire. Upon examining the interior of the house, they found pried open the glass door of a desk or bookcase. They found that the back of the house was high enough from the ground for a man to stand erect under, and that the signs on the ground indicated that someone had been standing or sitting on the ground. There were on the ground a cigarette butt, burned matches, and torn paper from a can of Prince Albert tobacco, indicating that someone had been smoking under the house. The state's witness, Tom Williams, testified that on the morning of May 2, 1952, he was plowing in his field near the road and saw a man walking along the road toward Smithville; that the man waved at him; that after the arrest of the appellant, the witness requested the sheriff to take him to see the appellant in jail to see if he could identify him as the man he had seen walking along the road; that he went to the jail with the officer, and on arriving there, asked the appellant if he saw him plowing and what kind of team he was working, and appellant replied that he was working a red mule and a black mule, and the witness said that this answered the description of the mules he was working. About the first of July, 1952, the appellant was arrested in Columbus, Mississippi. He was later brought to Fulton where he made a full confession in the county attorney's office in the presence of the county attorney and other officers, admitting that he shot and killed the deceased with a 22 pistol. It is abundantly shown that his confession was free and voluntary. He was not advised by the officers of any of the details of the homicide before he made his confession. He has never repudiated his confession, other than to testify on the preliminary inquiry as to the admissibility of the confession that he was scared. A recording was made of his detailed confession, which, after proper qualification, was admitted in evidence. In this confession, he admitted shooting the deceased with a 22 pistol, and gave the following detailed account of his crime: That prior and subsequent to the date of death of the deceased, he was employed with a traveling minstrel show known as 'Old Reliable New Orleans Minstrel'; that he was employed as a canvas boy, whose duties required him to assist in erecting the tent and performing other chores about the grounds; that on May 2, 1952, he was temporarily away from the show, and left Amory, Mississippi about 6:30 o'clock in the morning to go to the home of the deceased; that he had known the deceased before and had been to his home and borrowed money from him; that as he walked along the road and approached Smithville near the home of the deceased, he saw Tom Williams plowing in his field and waved to him; that he reached deceased's home about 10 o'clock in the morning and waited under the corner of the house for deceased to arrive; that while waiting under the house, which was high enough from the ground for him to stand upright, he smoked and threw on the ground burned matches and torn pieces of paper from a ...
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