Lewis v. State

• Decision Date: 20 January 1908
• Docket Number: 12899
• Citation: 91 Miss. 505,45 So. 360
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: GEORGE LEWIS v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

45 So. 360

91 Miss. 505

GEORGE LEWIS v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

No. 12899

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 20, 1908

FROM the circuit court of, first district, Hinds county, HON ROBERT L. BULLARD, Judge.

Lewis appellant, a negro, was indicted, tried and convicted of robbery, sentenced to the penitentiary for eight years, and appealed to the supreme court.

The opinion of the court sufficiently states the facts.

Affirmed.

Johnson & Johnson, for appellant.

The court below erred in not sustaining appellant's motion to quash the indictment. Testimony was offered upon the hearing of the motion, and it was shown by appellant's affidavit that there was race discrimination resulting to his prejudice inasmuch as negroes were not upon the grand or petit juries. A motion to quash an indictment should be sustained, if there is sufficient proof to support the allegations therein where the allegations, when proven, show matters prejudicial to the party indicted. Martin v. Texas, 100 U.S. 316.

In the administration of justice in criminal cases no rule can be applied to one class of persons that is not applicable to all classes. Gibson v. State, 162 U.S. 565.

In Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370, the United States supreme court said, in effect, that although the state jury law of Delaware did not exclude colored persons from serving as jurors, yet if the authorities, whose duty it is to select veniremen, purposely exclude negroes merely because of color such exclusion gives the right, not to a removal to the federal court, but to quash the indictment in the state court.

George Butler, assistant attorney-general, for the appellee.

Waiving the question of the sufficiency of the grounds alleged in the motion, and considering the language of the motion as being sufficient to present the question of race discrimination which appellant evidently intended to raise, we deem it only necessary to say that the motion was not sustained by the proof. In fact, the witnesses testified positively that in preparing the jury list, they did not discriminate against negroes because of their race or color. The burden of substantiating the grounds of the motion by sufficient evidence was upon appellant, and his verification on information and belief was insufficient.

The case of Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370; 26 L.Ed. 567, relied upon by appellant, is not in point, and has been modified by the later cases of Smith v. Mississippi, 162 U.S. 592; 40 L.Ed. 1082, and Farrance v. Florida, 188 U.S. 520; 48 L.Ed. 372.

The record discloses a plain case of robbery. No error prejudicial to appellant was committed on the trial and the judgment of the circuit court should be affirmed.

OPINION

MAYES, J.

This appellant is a negro, and was indicted in the first district of Hinds county on the charge of robbery, convicted, and given a sentence of eight years in the penitentiary. A review of this record leaves no doubt as to the propriety of his conviction on the evidence adduced by the state.

Before the trial a motion was made by the counsel for the appellant to quash the indictment on the ground that appellant had been discriminated against, in that no negroes were on the jury. When this motion was made, some testimony was taken in attempted support of it; but the testimony utterly fails to show that there was any discrimination against appellant in any way on account of his race or color. On the contrary, the testimony shows conclusively that the laws of the state...