Knight v. State, 42958

• Decision Date: 09 March 1964
• Docket Number: No. 42958,42958
• Citation: 248 Miss. 850,161 So.2d 521
• Parties: Pauline Edythe KNIGHT v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 521

161 So.2d 521

248 Miss. 850

Pauline Edythe KNIGHT v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 42958.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

March 9, 1964.

Young & Hall, R. Jess Brown, Jackson, Leroy D. Clark and Jack Greenberg, New York City, for appellant.

Joe T. Patterson, Atty. Gen., J. A. Travis, Jr., and Robert G. Nichols, Jr., Jackson, for appellee.

LEE, Chief Justice.

Pauline Edythe Knight was convicted by the Police Justice of the City of Jackson, acting as an ex-officio Justice of the Peace of Hinds County, Mississippi, of a violation of Section 2087.5, Code of 1942, Rec., being a charge of disorderly conduct. She appealed to the County Court of Hinds County where there was a trial de novo, resulting in a verdict of guilty as charged. Thereafter she appealed to the Circuit Court of Hinds County, where the judgment and sentence was affirmed. She has prosecuted her appeal to this Court.

Simply stated, the evidence was to the following effect: The date and occurrence of this alleged offense was about 1:30 P.M. on May 28, 1961, and the place was the Continental Trailways Bus Terminal in the City of Jackson. Captain J. L. Ray and a detail of other officers from the police department of the City were sent to the Terminal for the purpose of maintaining peace and order. They had advance notice, through police channels, that the defendant and others were coming to the City of Jackson for the purpose of creating an incident. The officers put in appearance at the Terminal prior to the arrival of the bus and had heard citizens of Jackson and Hinds County expressing themselves about the mission of such persons. The condition in and around the Terminal at that time was peaceful.

When the defendant and her group of seven others, after disembarking from the bus, entered the west (white) waiting room of the Terminal, the mood of the fifty people, including some newspapermen, on the inside, immediately changed. It became 'ugly and nasty'. The people began to move in and toward the group. The officers saw expressions on the faces of the people and heard their talk about this crowd and their accusations that the group were a bunch of agitators and trouble makers. The defendant used no vulgar or indecent language and made no unusual gestures; but she appeared to be afraid. At no time did she advise the officers that she had business in the waiting room, nor did she assert any claim that she was exercising her right of free speech or any other right.

Captain Ray, seeing the change in the attitude of the people, and deeming that the defendant and her group were the root of the trouble, and believing that, under the circumstances then existing, a breach of the peace was about to occur, twice ordered the defendant and the other members 'to move on'. When they refused, he arrested all of them.

The appellant has assigned and argued, in this case, the same alleged errors on the part of the trial court as were set out and argued in the case of Thomas v. State (1964), Miss., 160 So.2d 657. The opinion in that case deals with those several questions and cites the authorities on which the affirmance of that case was rested. See also Farmer v. State of Mississippi, 1964, Miss., 161 So.2d 159.

The reasons set forth in those cases and the principles there enunciated also govern and control the decision in this case. A further feature of these cases will be commented upon hereafter.

On cross examination of a State witness, counsel for the defendant sought to establish the identification of the defendant by race, but the objection of the State was sustained by the court. The defendant's position was based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and the objection should have been overruled.

Of course, the admission or exclusion of evidence must result in prejudice and harm, if a cause is to be reversed on that account. Rule 11 of the Revised Rules of the Supreme Court of Mississippi 1953. Actually the record discloses that, immediately before the State began the introduction of its evidence, the defendant was present and was arraigned and entered a plea of not guilty. Obviously the jury saw her at the time, and all during the trial, and could tell whether she was a white person or a Negro. Besides, after the State rested, counsel for the defendant, with the consent of the court, made the statement into the record, out of the presence of the jury, that the defendant was a Negro and that she went into the west waiting room of the Terminal, which was designated 'white waiting room'. In the first sentence of that brief, the appellant asserts: 'The appellant was arrested on May 28, 1961, with a racially mixed group shortly after they entered the white waiting room of the Trailways Bus Terminal in Jackson, Mississippi.'

In the Thomas case, supra, the opinion, in note 1, observed that this Court can take judicial notice of historical facts, and cited the following cases: Day v. Smith, 87 Miss. 395, 39 So. 526; Clark & Co. v. Miller, 154 Miss. 233, 122 So. 475; Moore v. Grillis, 205 Miss. 865, 39 So.2d 505, 10 A.L.R.2d 1425.

This Court, like everyone else, is somewhat conversant with historical facts. Hence it knows that slavery, as a legal institution, existed in this country from the earliest Colonial days. That status continued unabated even after the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed to the world in 1776 and thereafter beyond the adoption of the Constitution itself. As a matter...