McGinnis v. State, s. 41867
| Decision Date | 02 October 1961 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 41867,42040,s. 41867 |
| Citation | 241 Miss. 883,133 So.2d 399 |
| Parties | Lavelle McGINNIS v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
J. P. Coleman, Ackerman, J. E. Brown, Starkville, for appellant.
Joe T. Patterson, Atty. Gen., by G. Garland Lyell, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The above-numbered causes were consolidated and are being decided on the records made in the respective cases.
Lavelle McGinnis is alleged to have killed and murdered Bobby Moore on the twenty second day of November 1959. He was convicted of the crime of manslaughter and given the maximum sentence of twenty years in the state penitentiary. Prior to the trial his attorneys, former Governor J. P. Coleman and James E. Brown, who were representing the appellant in the place and stead of L. W. Brown, deceased, filed a petition under oath alleging that the appellant was mentally incapable of advising with his said attorneys and conducting a rational defense in the case; that he should be sent to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield for observation and examination by the medical staff at that institution, and that in the meantime the cause should be continued, awaiting the report of such medical staff at Whitfield.
In response to the above-mentioned motion, the State introduced several witnesses who testified mainly that prior to September 15, 1959, the defendant was, to their knowledge, doing good work as a painter. They were not asked anything in reference to the ability of the appellant to confer with his attorneys intelligently and conduct a rational defense or whether or not he could safely take the stand as a witness in his own behalf on account of his then mental incapacity when the trial was held several months later. Neither did the State file any answer denying the allegations of the petition on behalf of the defendant wherein he was alleged to be mentally incapable of conferring with his attorneys or of making a rational defense to the charge against him. Moreover, the petition further alleged that the defendant had given to the attorneys four different versions of what occurred at the scene of the homicide, and they stated in their sworn petition as officers of the court that if the defendant was forced to trial, they would not be able to put him on the witness stand to testify in his own behalf and that the case would have to be submitted solely on the testimony on behalf of the State.
On the other hand, the defense offered witnesses to show that it sometimes became necessary to take the defendant by the hand and lead him to where he was to perform his work as a painter on the occasion testified to by the State's witnesses over several months prior to the trial. Some of them testified that when he was supposed to use white paint that he would get a bucket of green paint to use.
Chapter 262, Laws of 1960, provides among other things the following: 'In any criminal action in the circuit court in which the mental condition of a person indicted for a felony is in question, the court or judge in vacation on motion duly made by the defendant, the district attorney or on the motion of the court or judge, may order such person to submit to a mental examination by a competent psychiatrist selected by the court to determine his ability to make a defense; * * *.'
Subsequent to the conviction of the defendant of the crime of manslaughter and his maximum sentence to the penitentiary for a term of twenty years, the cause was appealed to this Court and had been docketed for hearing in this Court. Thereupon some interested parties had the defendant committed to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield. It is not contended that either of the attorneys for the defendant had anything to do with having him committed to Whitfield and only learned about it after it had occurred. Dr. J. J. Head testified that while the defendant was at Whitfield, that at a meeting of the medical staff at Whitfield when eighteen members of the staff were present, he, the said witness, questioned the defendant and that after this, all eighteen members of the staff agreed that he was then insane. This testimony was given on the hearing of a petition before the trial judge for a writ of error coram nobis, after the appeal of the case here, and the judge overruled the petition for a writ of error coram nobis presumably on the ground that this Court had already acquired jurisdiction in the case. The appellant appealed from the denial of the writ of error coram nobis and that appeal was consolidated in this Court with the appeal from the judgment of conviction. However, after the time of the trial and conviction of defendant, following the petition filed in his behalf asking that he be committed to the state hospital at Whitfield for observation and examination, the hearing on the application for a writ of error coram nobis was consolidated, on appeal, with the hearing on the merits of this appeal. It is because of this that we have before us the testimony of Dr. Head as to the unanimous conclusion of the eighteen members of the medical staff after the defendant had been questioned in their presence.
While Chapter 262, Laws of 1960, may not be mandatory that the trial judge shall have an accused examined by a psychiatrist when his present ability to conduct a rational defense and intelligently confer with his c...
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Jaquith v. Beckwith
...his position and to participate rationally in his defense. Eastland v. State, 223 Miss. 195, 78 So.2d 127 (1955); McGinnis v. State, 241 Miss. 883, 891, 133 So.2d 399 (1961). Both before and after the 1960 statute, the rule has been that, where there is a reasonable probability that defenda......
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Hutto v. State
...the burden on Hutto to prove he was incompetent to stand trial. ¶ 15. Hutto argues that this Court's decision in McGinnis v. State, 241 Miss. 883, 133 So.2d 399 (1961), required the prosecution to prove Hutto was competent to stand trial. He claims that McGinnis stands for the proposition t......
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Griffin v. State, s. 56136
...(1972), which has been construed as requiring the issue of competency to be submitted to a jury for resolution. See McGinnis v. State, 241 Miss. 883, 133 So.2d 399 (1961); Williamson v. State, 330 So.2d 272 ...
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Richardson v. State
...evidence presented as a basis for the order. See, e.g., Jaquith v. Beckwith, 248 Miss. 491, 157 So.2d 403 (1963); McGinnis v. State, 241 Miss. 883, 133 So.2d 399 (1961); Eastland v. State, 223 Miss. 195, 78 So.2d 127 (1955). In Jaquith, the Court held that there must be evidence indicating ......