Cameron v. State
| Decision Date | 28 April 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 40775,40775 |
| Citation | 102 So.2d 355,233 Miss. 404 |
| Parties | J. C. CAMERON v. STATE. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Emmette P. Allen, Brookhaven, for appellant.
Joe T. Patterson, Atty. Gen., By J. R. Griffin, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
On the 4th day of March 1957 the appellant J. C. Cameron, a Negro, had been arrested for the crime of rape against Mrs. C. T. Travis on December 18, 1956, and for the crime of rape committed on February 3, 1957, against Mrs. Polly Hales and against Mrs. Euna Mae Johnston, respectively, in the City of Brookhaven, Lincoln County, Mississippi. On the said 4th day of March 1957 a local member of the Lincoln County bar was appointed by the Circuit Court of the county to defend the appellant against the said charge of the crime committed against the said Mrs Polly Hales and of the one against Mrs. Euna Mae Johnston, respectively, for both of which the appellant had been indicted, and on March 19, 1957, another local attorney was appointed by the court to assist in the defense of the appellant on the two said indictments, since the accused was unable to employ counself for his defense in either of those cases.
The three victims of the said crimes were all adult married white women.
While the officers were investigating the crime which had been committed against Mrs. C. T. Travis on December 18, 1956, they arrested the appellant on February 7, 1957, as a suspect of the commission of the said crime, for the purpose of an investigation and comparison of finger prints, etc. After taking the accused into custody, and while transporting him in an automobile from Brookhaven to the office of the Mississippi State Highway Patrol in Jackson, Mississippi, the two highway patrolmen informed the accused upon leaving Brookhaven in the automobile for Jackson that the reason that they had taken him into custody was that he was suspected of having committed the said crime against Mrs. C. T. Travis on December 18, 1956, and that they were also investigating the crimes committed against Mrs. Polly Hales and Mrs. Euna Mae Johnston, respectively, on February 3, 1957. Without waiting to be questioned by the said officers he responded to their explanation as to why he had been arrested by saying: 'I am the Negro.'
It does not appear that while the officers were enroute from Brookhaven to the Mississippi State Highway Patrol Office in Jackson that there was any further discussion of either of the said crimes between the officers and the accused. The distance from Brookhaven to Jackson was approximately 55 miles. When the officers arrived with the accused at the office of the State Highway Patrol in Jackson the accused was first allowed to eat his supper, and soon thereafter, upon the arrival of the sheriff of Lincoln County, the Chief of Police of Brookhaven, and the District Attorney, he made a full, free and voluntary confession in considerable detail of his guilt of the crime against Mrs. Euna Mae Johnston, for which he was later indicted on September 4, 1957, and for which he was tried, convicted and given a death sentence, as fixed by the jury, on September 23, 1957.
Prior to the September 1957 Term of the court, to-wit on March 27, 1957, the circuit judge, upon motion of the defense attorneys, committed the accused to the Mississippi State Hospital for the Insane at Whitfield, Mississippi, in order that it might be determined by the medical staff of the said institution as to whether the accused was then presently sane or insane and as to whether he was sane or insane at the time of the commission of the said crimes on December 18, 1956, and on February 3, 1957, his commitment to the Mississippi State Hospital for the Insane having been only for the purpose hereinbefore mentioned, and in order that if the accused was found to be sane at that time and also at the time of the commission of the alleged crimes, the order of the court provided that 'immediately after the completion of the said examination and report, if the defendant be found presently sane, then and in that event, the defendant shall be returned to the custody of the sheriff of Hinds County, Mississippi, to be dealt with according to law and subject to the further order and judgments of this court.'
The record in the instant case fails to disclose what the report of the staff at the Mississippi State Hospital for the Insane was, but the record does disclose that he was returned to the custody of the sheriff, presumably because they had found the accused to be sane, since it was only in that event that he was to be returned to the custody of the said officer, under the terms of the order of commitment. The defense of insanity was not interposed by the accused upon the trial of the instant case, and no contention is made here in that behalf.
The indictment in the instant case was returned by the grand jury of Lincoln County on September 4, 1957, as aforesaid. Both of the attorneys appointed for the defense of the accused were residing at Brookhaven, the county seat of Lincoln County, while the grand jury was in session, and at all times from the date of the commission of the alleged crime on February 3, 1957, and on the date of the return of the indictment in the instant case on September 4, 1957.
No challenge was made to quash the panel or to the array of the jurors either before or at the time the grand jury was being impaneled at the September 1957 term of the court.
But on September 10, 1957, which was during the second week of the September Term of the court, and after the grand jury had made its report of the indictments found, the defendant filed a 'motion to quash (the) indictment', on the ground that the accused was
The motion to quash the indictment further alleged
In support of the motion to quash the indictment the defendant introduced a number of former law enforcement officers of the county, and proved that no Negro had actually served on either the grand or petit juries in the county during a period of more than thirty years, and the prosecution failed to show that any Negroes had been summoned for jury service or served on either of such juries during the said period of time prior to the September 1957 term of the court. But the State did prove on the hearing of this motion to quash the indictment, the method of selecting the names placed in the jury boxes for service for the year 1957 to be as follows: That the circuit clerk furnished to the board of supervisors a list of 3,132 male qualified electors from which the individual members of the board were to select a number of those in their respective districts whom they considered qualified for jury service, and return to the circuit clerk a list of those so slected from each supervisor's district. The number selected by the board of supervisors for jury service for that year was 471 male qualified electors. The proof further showed that there were 265 male Negro qualified electors in the county, but there were no marks or other indication on the list of 3,132 male qualified electors furnished by the circuit clerk to the board of supervisors to show whether those on the list were white or Negro men.
Section 1762, Code of 1942, provides who are competent jurors. Among the requirements to render a qualified elector eligible for jury service he must be a male citizen, at least twenty-one years of age, who is a qualified elector and able to read and write, has not been convicted of an infamous crime, or the unlawful sale of intoxicating liquors within the period of five years and who is not a common gambler or habitual drunkard. In other words, there is a difference between being a qualified elector and being one eligible for jury service. Moreover another statute, Section 1766, Code of 1942, provides that in filling the jury boxes for each year the supervisors shall select the names of those who are men of good intelligence, sound judgment and fair character.
Each of the five members of the board of supervisors testified upon the hearing of this motion to quash that pursuant to the charge of the circuit judge at each term of the court that the supervisors should select men for jury service of good intelligence, sound judgment and fair character, that each of the said supervisors in selecting a sufficient number of men to serve on the juries for the year had rejected the names of numerous white qualified electors and had failed to place their names on the list of names that were to be placed by the circuit clerk in the jury boxes these white male electors whom the supervisors did not deem to meet the qualifications required for jury service; that they applied the same rule to white qualified electors as they did the...
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...v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 74 S.Ct. 667, 98 L.Ed. 866; Kennard v. State, 242 Miss. 691, 128 So.2d 572. This Court in Cameron v. State, 233 Miss. 404, 102 So.2d 355, observed that it was a matter of common knowledge that the supervisors, in most of the counties in the state, since the decision ......
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