Craft v. State
| Decision Date | 05 May 1947 |
| Docket Number | 36459. |
| Citation | 30 So.2d 414,202 Miss. 43 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | CRAFT v. STATE. |
Edwards & Edwards, of Mendenhall, and Dixon Pyles, of Jackson, for appellant.
Greek L. Rice, Atty. Gen., and Geo. H. Ethridge Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The Sheriff of Smith County received reliable information, on Sunday night, August 18, 1946, that a felony had been committed that night at or near the residence of a negro named Albert Craft, Sr., in the southwestern portion of the county, but he had no information as to who was the guilty party or whether one or more. About eight o'clock the next morning, accompanied by seven deputies, he went to the Craft home with the purpose, as the record sufficiently discloses, to arrest all those found there to the end that having taken them into custody, he could better investigate their guilt, if any of them were guilty. He had no warrant for the arrest of any person or persons, and no such warrant had been issued.
When he and some of his deputies had reached a point within less than a quarter of a mile of the Craft residence and in plain view thereof, he and his deputies saw several negroes leave the house in flight therefrom, whereupon the sheriff and a number of his deputies hastened to the premises, called upon the fleeing negroes to halt, and upon their failure to do so, members of the posse, including the sheriff himself, fired on the negroes, and some of them continued to do so as long as any of the negroes remained within range.
It appears that on the previous night unknown parties had fired a considerable number of shots into the Craft house, and that when the posse appeared within sight on the next morning, the elder Craft, without recognizing who they were, became excited and alarmed and exclaimed that all the negroes in the house should run for their lives; and this they did. One of them was a negro named Cooper who had come there that morning to go to work, and as best can be ascertained from this rather imperfect record, he led the flight, followed immediately by the others including appellant, who is the nineteen-year-old son of Albert Craft, and also Albert Craft Jr., twelve years old, a brother of appellant.
Cooper was the first to be fired upon by the posse, and when appellant in his flight reached the hog pen, they shot at him, and the twelve-year-old boy was fired upon as he ran through the cotton patch. The sheriff admitted that he himself fired at the boy. There was a thicket immediately beyond the cotton patch, and when appellant reached the thicket, he turned and fired back at the sheriff, when the sheriff in his advance had reached a point about thirty steps into the cotton patch; and it was for this that appellant was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary.
The facts about the firing upon the fleeing negroes, as briefly outlined above, was established by the testimony of three of the negroes who fled, and by that of the elder Craft who remained at the house, the other negroes not having been introduced; and not only is that testimony wholly undisputed by the State, but is in a measure substantiated by two of the State's witnesses. Wherefore the facts about that matter, substantially as stated, must be, and they are, accepted as true.
Under our statute, Section 2470, Code 1942, an arrest may be made without warrant and for an offense not committed in the presence of the person making the arrest...
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