Hopkins v. State, 43777
| Decision Date | 24 January 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 43777,43777 |
| Citation | 254 Miss. 484,182 So.2d 236 |
| Parties | M. L. HOPKINS v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
John H. Shands, Vaiden, Rupert Ringold, Winona, for appellant.
Joe T. Patterson, Atty. Gen., by G. Garland Lyell, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
Appellant was indicted, tried and convicted of the crime of grand larceny and sentenced to serve five years in the state penitentiary by the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Mississippi. From this conviction and sentence, appellant prosecutes this appeal.
The facts upon which the indictment was based and the verdict rendered are not in issue. The sole question presented to this Court is embodied in the single assignment of error, which is as follows:
The Trial Court erred in failing to sustain appellant's motions to quash the indictment and to quash the venire, on the grounds that Negroes were systematically excluded from the grand jury which indicted him, and Negroes were systematically excluded from the venire which petit jurors were drawn, all in violation of the due process and equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendments (sic) to the United States Constitution.
Whether or not the assignment of error is well taken depends upon whether or not the appellant's proof is sufficient to establish a prima facie case that Negroes were systematically excluded from the grand jury which indicted him and from the venire from which petit jurors were drawn who convicted him. We have meticulously reviewed the testimony and evidence in this case and we have carefully considered the motions and briefs of counsel. The record disclose that the appellant proved by sufficient and reputable testimony that there were no names of any Negroes in the jury box.
The circuit clerk, who is also the county registrar, testified that she had been circuit clerk since the beginning of 1950; that she was present when the venire was drawn; that there were no Negroes drawn on the venire for the term of court at which the appellant was tried and convicted.
It follows, therefore, that there were no Negroes on the grand jury or the petit jury which respectively indicted and convicted the appellant.
The recover further discloses that there have never been any Negroes drawn for jury service in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County for more than sixteen years and that possibly there are thirty Negroes who are registered in the county. The State urges, without authority cited in support thereof, that since the circuit clerk did not personally know the names of all those selected for jury service, and since there was no indication of the race of any person whose name was drawn for jury service, except those...
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Boyd v. State
...405 U.S. 625, 92 S.Ct. 1221, 31 L.Ed.2d 536; Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U.S. 545, 87 S.Ct. 643, 17 L.Ed.2d 599, and Hopkins v. State, 254 Miss. 484, 182 So.2d 236. None of these deal with situations similar to the one at bar and none of them indicate that merely because no blacks are on a jury ......
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Fondren v. State
...a prima facie case of systematic discrimination. The burden is then upon the State to refute it.' See also Hopkins v. State, 254 Miss. 484, 182 So.2d 236 (1966), and Gordon v. Breazeale, 246 F.Supp. 2 The state made no effort to rebut the prima facie case established by appellant, nor did i......