La Fontaine v. State, 39746
| Decision Date | 21 March 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 39746,39746 |
| Citation | 78 So.2d 600,223 Miss. 562 |
| Parties | August C. LA FONTAINE. v. STATE. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
R. D. Everett, Ruleville, for appellant.
J. P. Coleman, Atty. Gen., by Joe T. Patterson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The appellant, August C. La Fontaine, was indicted on September 9, 1954, for the murder of Ralph DeLoach on the 28th day of March, 1954. An attorney was appointed to defend him a few weeks a prior to the September 1954 term of the court at which he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for his crime of murder. Both the accused and his victim, DeLoach, were serving terms in the state penitentiary at the time DeLoach was stabbed to death with a homemade knife by the accused.
The place of the homicide was in the west wing of the sleeping quarters at Camp No. 6 in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. It occurred on Sunday afternoon between 1:30 and 2:00 o'clock. Both the accused and his victim had formerly resided in the east wing of the building where the sleeping quarters of one-half or 56 of the convicts in this building were located. On February 26, 1954, while these two men were still assigned to the east wing, they became engaged in a fight with each other, and on which occasion the accused had undertaken to get a shovel from a nearby coal bin, and for the apparent purpose of inflicting an injury to DeLoach, who was then one of the night bosses in the east wing of the sleeping quarters, and during which fight DeLoach struck a blow on the head of the accused, and with the result that thereupon the accused was hospitalized.
The proof disclosed that the other 56 convicts slept in the west wing of the building. Shortly after the fight that occurred on February 26, 1954, as aforesaid, the accused at the suggestion of one of the other prisoners made the request of the sergeant that he be transferred from the east wing to the west wing where he would not be under the authority of DeLoach, since it appears that at that time there was a bad feeling existing between the two men on account of this previous difficulty.
About 12 or 14 days prior to the killing on March 28, 1954, DeLoach also obtained a transfer from the east wing to the west wing of the building, where he continued as 'cage-boss' and resumed authority over the accused. The testimony of the person who consented to the transfer of DeLoach to the west wing where the accused was residing is to the effect that he had been advised by both of these men that they had settled their difficulties. Nevertheless, the record before us discloses that the accused La Fontaine was a dangerous man, and that DeLoach should not have been transferred to the west wing, even at his own request, and placed in authority over La Fontaine in view of the threats that each had made to kill the other, thus affording an opportunity for his smouldering animosity to be rekindled into a flame of deadly fury.
On the afternoon of the killing, DeLoach, doing night work as 'cage-boss' and whose duty it was to see to it that each of the prisoners were in their respective beds at night and to preserve order, etc., was sleeping in his own bed, and presumably had been asleep since he retired about 7:30 o'clock that Sunday morning. The accused La Fontaine and the other prisoners in that wing of the sleeping quarters had slept during the previous night and were merely 'lounging about' in the west wing of the building during that afternoon, when it appears that the accused La Fontaine and his co-indictee, Fred Lamar Scott, had conspired to kill DeLoach. Upon retiring that morning, DeLoach had draped the bed on each side and at the foot with blankets or quilts extending from the upper bed down to the lower one in which he retired to sleep, so as to make it dark and enable him to sleep during that day, the other end of his bed being against the wall.
Immediately prior to the killing the accused La Fontaine was seen to walk slowly and stealthily toward DeLoach's bed while watching such other prisoners as were then in their sleeping compartment; and Fred Lamar Scott was seen to go between this bed and another on the other side thereof from La Fontaine. A fellow prisoner testified that he had just previously observed that La Fontaine and Scott appeared to be somewhat nervous, and this prisoner asked Scott what was the trouble, when Scott replied, 'Never mind, you will see.' His testimony discloses that he suspected that trouble was brewing, but he did not report their suspicious conduct or try to prevent the impending tragedy, perhaps fearing that the same fate would come to him that DeLoach immediately suffered.
A number of witnesses testified that La Fontaine, upon arriving at DeLoach's bed, pulled aside the blanket or quilt which was draped from the upper bed and began to cut DeLoach several times with a knife, that DeLoach was sleeping in the bed, dressed only in a pair of shorts and an undershirt and with no weapon about his bed, when the cutting occurred; and La Fontaine was seen with the knife in his hand by several witnesses after DeLoach got out of the bed and tried to escape from his assailants. In trying to get away DeLoach passed near Scott who struck him a blow with some instrument.
The proof further shows that La Fontaine disclosed to a prisoner named 'Mose' the presence of this knife in his hand and asked him if he 'wanted part of it.' Thereupon, La Fontaine went to the latrine where he remained approximately one minute, and where the homemade knife, later introduced in evidence in the trial, was found.
The State introduced ten witnesses, all of whom, except the doctor who testified about the fatal would and except one sergeant, were convicts. When the prosecution rested its case on the testimony of all of these witnesses, the defense likewise rested without introducing any testimony whatsoever. The deceased, DeLoach, the accused La Fontaine, and all of the witnesses were white men.
The proof shows conclusively, and it is wholly undisputed as aforesaid, that La Fontaine stabbed DeLoach to death, in a brutal, calculated, and savage manner. Then he remorselessly turned to another prisoner with the knife in his hand, and asked him if he wanted part of it, as heretofore mentioned.
The appellant in the instant case, La Fontaine, assigns as error on this appeal, and as alleged grounds for the reversal of the case: (1) the refusal of the trial court to allow the appellant's counsel to interview him...
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...evidence, King v. State, 315 So.2d 925, 926 (Miss.1975); Cannon v. State, 190 So.2d 848, 850 (Miss.1966); La Fontaine v. State, 223 Miss. 562, 78 So.2d 600, 604 (1955). (4) Where the State's proof consists of circumstantial evidence, the State is required to prove its case to the exclusion ......
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