Lee v. Hudson

• Decision Date: 07 November 1932
• Docket Number: 30402
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: LEE v. HUDSON, SHERIFF

144 So. 240

165 Miss. 756

LEE v. HUDSON, SHERIFF

No. 30402

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 7, 1932

Division B

1. HABEAS CORPUS.

Trial court's judgment in habeas corpus proceeding is presumptively correct.

2. HABEAS CORPUS.

Trial judge's fact findings on conflicting evidence in habeas corpus proceeding, if supported by evidence, will not be disturbed on appeal.

HON. T PRICE DALE, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Forrest county, HON. T. PRICE, DALE Judge.

Habeas corpus proceeding by J. P. Lee against E. E. Hudson, Sheriff. From a decree denying bail and remanding petitioner to the custody of the sheriff, petitioner appeals. Affirmed.

Affirmed.

W. D. Conner and D. W. Holmes, both of Hattiesburg, for appellant.

W. D. Conn, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General, for appellee.

Brief of counsel not found.

OPINION

Ethridge, P. J.

This is an appeal from a habeas corpus proceeding seeking bail; the appellant having been arrested on the charge of murdering Leroy Ward.

There was a preliminary hearing before the county judge, who denied bail; whereupon habeas corpus was sued out before the chancellor, who, having heard the evidence, also denied bail, and remanded the prisoner to the custody of officers.

There were two direct witnesses testifying that the appellant shot Leroy Ward, and that no one else did any shooting, and that there was, apparently, no cause for the shooting.

There was other evidence which contradicted the testimony of these two witnesses; but the county judge and the chancellor each passed upon the conflict in the evidence, and the witnesses were before them and they had the advantage of seeing the witnesses and observing their demeanor, etc.

The rule is that the judgment of the trial court which heard the habeas corpus proceeding is presumptively correct, and, where the evidence is conflicting, the judge's finding of fact, if supported by the evidence, will not be disturbed on appeal.

In Stokes v. Terrell, 154 Miss. 230, 122 So. 470, it is said that: "It has been the usual course in this court on appeals in this class of cases to forego comment in detail on the evidence, unless the necessity therefor is unavoidable. The reason for this course, in advance of the principal trial, is manifest. Therefore, all we say is that under all the testimony, when taken in connection with the physical facts, there is one view of the case, amply upheld by the...