Dixon v. State

• Decision Date: 09 November 1896
• Citation: 20 So. 839,74 Miss. 271
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: JOHN HENRY DIXON v. STATE

20 So. 839

74 Miss. 271

JOHN HENRY DIXON v. STATE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 9, 1896

October 1896

FROM the circuit court of Washington county HON. R. W. WILLIAMSON Judge.

The defendant was indicted for the murder of Nancy Miner. He moved the court below for an order removing the case to the United States court, which motion was overruled. Defendant also made a motion to quash the indictment, and this motion was denied. The facts upon which these motions were based are stated in the opinion of the court. Upon the trials, it appeared in evidence that defendant shot at another person and killed Nancy Miner, whom, it is claimed, he did not see. The state, over defendant's objection, introduced evidence showing that defendant entertained hostile feelings towards the person at whom his shot was aimed. Defendant was convicted, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. He appealed from the conviction and sentence.

Judgment affirmed.

C. J. Jones, for appellant.

Wiley N. Nash, Attorney-general, for the state.

The petition for removal was properly denied. The action of the court was justified by the decision of the supreme court of the United States in Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370. This case is an authority in point. The cases of Gibson v. State, MS. op., and Charley Smith v. State, MS. op., decided by this court, sustain the action of the court below. The case of Smith was appealed to the United States supreme court and affirmed, and is reported in 162 U.S. 592. The case of Gibson was also appealed and also affirmed. 162 U.S. 592. Neither of these cases are reported in our reports. In the Smith case Mr. Justice Harlan, in rendering the opinion of the court, holding the petition for removal was properly denied, states: "Neither the constitution nor the laws of Mississippi, by their language, reasonably interpreted., or as interpreted by the highest courts of the state, show that the accused was denied, or could not enforce in the judicial tribunals of the state, or in the part of the state where such suit or prosecution was pending, any right secured to him by any law providing for the equal civil rights of citizens of the United States."

In the Gibson case the justice, in denying the application for removal, or rather passing upon this point, says: "But they do not support the application for the removal of this cause from the state court in which the indictment was found, for the reason that neither the constitution of Mississippi nor the statutes of the state prescribe any rule for or mode of procedure in the trial of criminal causes which is not equally applicable to all citizens of the United States and to all persons within the jurisdiction of the state, without regard to race or previous condition of servitude." Gibson v. State, 162 U.S. 582. On the same page will be found this language: "But when the constitution and laws of a state, as interpreted by its highest tribunals, do not stand in the way of the enforcement of rights secured equally to all citizens of the United States, the possibility that during the trial of any particular case the state court may not respect and enforce the right to the equal protection of the laws constitutes no ground, under the statute, for removing the prosecution into circuit court of the United States in advance of the trial."

As to the action of the court below in not allowing the removal, there is no error, according to both the decision of this court in the cases above referred to, when before it, as well as the action of the supreme court of the United States, where both cases were affirmed on writ of error.

It will readily occur to the court, upon a review of the subject in the light of recent authorities, that the motion to quash could not have been sustained on reason or authority. The United States supreme court, in the Gibson case, before cited, states: "The conduct of a criminal trial in a state court cannot be reviewed in this court unless the trial is had under some statute repugnant to the constitution of the United States, or was so conducted as to deprive the accused of some right or immunity secured to him by that instrument. Mere error in administering the criminal law of a state, or in the conduct of a criminal trial, no federal right being invaded or denied, is beyond the revisory power of this court, under the statutes regulating its jurisdiction." Citing Andrews v. Swarts, 156 U.S. 272, 276; Bergeman v. Backer, 157 U.S. 655, 659. Indeed, it would not be competent for congress to confer such power on this or any other court of the United States. Gibson v. Mississippi, 162 U.S. 591.

The whole effort of the appellant in the case at bar is to make a parol allegation of the purpose and intent for which the people of Mississippi assembled to amend her constitution and her laws, and then again by further parol testimony to establish the intent with which such constitution and laws were passed, changed or amended. Such an effort, such an attempt, is unprecedented in legislative or judicial history in this or any other civilized country, and such an idea will not be entertained for a moment.

There are no provisions in the constitution of Mississippi, there are no laws passed pursuant to this constitution, Which, per se, deprive the colored citizen of any right, civil or political, which are enjoyed by any other citizen, race, color or class. The same constitutional provisions, the same laws, apply to each and every inhabitant within our state. Every citizen of the state, whether of the Caucasian, Mongolian, African or other race, if he can qualify under general laws, has the privilege of the elective franchise, the right to hold office, serve on grand or petit juries. Every colored man in the state is eligible to all these rights and privileges, as much so as any other citizen in the state.

In the case of Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. p. 303, the law complained of there expressly stated that "all white male persons, who are twenty-one years of age, and who are citizens of this state, shall be liable to serve as jurors, except as herein provided." In Mississippi we have no such law as this, discriminating against race or color. In the West Virginia law, all persons of a certain race were excluded from serving on juries, solely on account of color, so that by no possibility could a colored man sit upon a jury. No such contention can be made as to the case at bar. Our constitution and our laws refuse such a proposition. There is no provision in the constitution of this state, no law on the statute book, that per se can be said to be directed by way of discriminating against negroes, or any other people or race, as a race, or class as a class.

OPINION

COOPER, C. J.

The appellant has been indicted, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment for life for the murder of one Nancy Miner. In the court below the defendant made a motion to quash the indictment, and when the motion was overruled he moved for a transfer of the cause from the state to the federal court. This motion was also denied. The action of the court in refusing to quash the indictment, and in denying the petition for a transfer of the cause, constitute the principal errors assigned. The motion and the petition set out, in effect, the same facts, and affidavits of several persons were filed that the matters therein stated were, as affiants believed, true. The purpose of the motion seems to have been primarily to assail the validity of all the laws passed since the adoption of our recent constitution, and of that constitution itself, on the ground that said constitution and laws are obnoxious to the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States. The motion is too long to be inserted in this opinion. It states some facts, many inferences and deductions, and an argument to show that the conditions resulting from the adoption of the constitution are incompatible with the rights guaranteed to the colored race by the fourteenth amendment. Compressed within reasonable limits, the substance of the motion is that the constitutional convention was composed of 134 members, of which 133 were whites and one only a negro; that the purpose and object of said constitution was to disqualify, by reason of their color, race, and previous condition of servitude, 190, 000 negro voters; that the constitution was not submitted to a vote of the people, and that the representation of the state in congress has not been reduced, as it should have been, upon the disqualification of so great a number of voters; that sections 241, 242, and 244 of the constitution of this state are in conflict with the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, because they vest in administrative officers the power to discriminate against citizens by reason of their color; and, that the purpose of so investing such officers with such power was intended by the framers of the state constitution, to the end that it should be used to discriminate against the negroes of the state.

We will recur to the contents of the motion hereafter, for the purpose of considering such averments as seem more nearly related to the subject under investigation, viz., the competency and legality of the grand jury by which the indictment against appellant was returned. At this point in the investigation it is sufficient to say that we have no power to investigate or decide upon the private, individual purposes of those who framed the constitution, the political or racial complexion of the body of the convention, and have no concern with the representation of the state in congress. We can deal only with the perfected work--the written constitution adopted and put in operation by the convention. We have heretofore decided that...