McNeer v. State, 40099
| Decision Date | 28 May 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 40099,40099 |
| Citation | 228 Miss. 308,87 So.2d 568 |
| Parties | Don McNEER v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Bell & McBee, Means Johnston, Greenwood, for appellant.
Joe T. Patterson, Asst. Atty. Gen., by John H. Price, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Appellant, Don McNeer, was jointly indicted with J. E. Brownlow for the murder of James Elbert Vance. Appellant was separately tried and convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to serve ten years in the state penitentiary.
The jury was justified in finding the facts as next stated.
Four young men, James Elbert Vance, Bernard Blakeley, Pat Blakeley, and Lee Clanton Frazier, sometimes referred to as the Grenada County boys, ranging in age from 19 to 21 years, went to a beer joint known as the Red Robin, and located in Carroll County, to get beer and soft drinks. They had all previously had one or two beers which they had drunk elsewhere, but none were shown to have been drunk. When they arrived at the Red Robin, they took seats in a booth and ordered three beers and a soft drink. Appellant, age 20, and J. E. Brownlow, age 18, cousins, were in the Red Robin when the Grenada County boys arrived. They had been drinking, and were then drinking, gin. After being seated, Vance asked Brownlow in a friendly way as to whether they knew each other, and Brownlow replied, also in a friendly manner. In fact, the two sets of boys had never seen each other. Immediately after this brief conversation between Vance and Brownlow, appellant walked over to where Vance was sitting and asked Vance, 'You are talking smart to me, ain't you?', to which Vance replied that he was not talking to appellant. Appellant then slapped Vance on the side of the head; Vance partly raised up and hit appellant, knocking him against a counter. Appellant then pulled out of his pocket a Japanese switch-blade knife that ejected the three-inch blade by pressing a button. Appellant then cursed the Grenada County boys, calling them yellow-bellied, low bred, and other kinds of sons-of-bitches. The owner of the Red Robin came out with a blackjack and stopped the trouble and prevailed upon appellant to put up his knife. The Grenada County boys told appellant they did not want any trouble and again sat down at their booth. The owner returned to the rear of the place, after which appellant again pulled his knife and went over to the booth and said to Pat Blakeley, who was wearing an army shirt, 'I want to whip this damn soldier.' Pat Blakeley declined appellant's offer to fight, whereupon appellant began calling Pat Blakeley a yellow-bellied son-of-a-bitch. Then appellant hit Blakeley in the eye. Blakeley did not fight back. The Grenada County boys started to leave, but appellant met them with his drawn knife and asked them where they were going, and upon being told that they were going home, appellant said, 'You are not going no damn place.' This was the second time the Grenada County boys had tried to leave. The owner came out again and told appellant to leave the boys alone and let them go, and while the owner was engaging appellant, the Granada County boys left the Red Robin and got in their car. Bernard Blakeley got under the wheel, Vance on the right front seat, Pat Blakeley on the left rear seat, and Frazier on the right rear, but before Vance could close the right front door, appellant got in the car with his knife drawn and placed his back against the windshield and put his knife point against Vance's stomach and told the Grenada County boys they weren't going 'any damn place.' The boys told appellant that they did not want any trouble, but appellant cursed them again and said he was going to 'teach you folks from Grenada County and Montgomery County to stay out of Carroll County.' They tried to leave and each time Bernard Blakeley would reach for the car switch, appellant would take the knife from Vance's stomach and put it against Bernard's stomach and again tell them that they were not going 'no damn place.' The Grenada County boys tried to make friends and begged appellant to let them go, but appellant refused to do so. Brownlow was standing by the car doing nothing. Appellant ordered him to search the car. Brownlow felt in the car and found a jar containing a small quantity of corn whiskey. Appellant forced all four of the boys to take a drink of the whiskey. Appellant continued to abuse and curse the Grenada County boys for fifteen to thirty minutes. Brownlow had said little except that he said he did not like anyone named Blakeley. Appellant opened the glove compartment of the car and took therefrom a small knife and put it in his pocket. Finally, appellant called them other kinds of sons-of-bitches, and demanded they fall out and fight. Vance told appellant he would not fight him because of the knife, whereupon appellant handed his open knife to Brownlow who was standing by the right door of the car, and grabbed Vance to drag him out of the car with the announced intention of 'stomping the hell' out of him. Vance kicked appellant loose and told Bernard Blakeley, 'Let's go.' While appellant was partly on the ground and hanging on the door, Bernard Blakeley started the car backward to get away from the building in order to be able to go forward and leave. As the car was backing up a short distance, Brownlow said, 'Hell, no, you can't do that,' at about the same time appellant, while hanging on the door, said, 'Kill him,' and Brownlow ran in and stabbed Vance with the knife appellant had handed him. The Grenada County boys left. Vance had been stabbed in the heart and died in a few minutes. Appellant lost his right shoe and thought it was in the Grenada County boys' car. He and Brownlow went to Winona in search of them, and not finding them, went back to the Red Robin where they found the shoe in the back of their own car. While at the Red Robin this time, appellant told the wife of the owner that if anyone asked if he had been there to tell them he had not. Appellant and Brownlow then started to Greenwood and wrecked their car when they hit a telephone pole. When arrested at 2:00 A.M. that same night, appellant ws asleep at home. The deputy sheriff woke him and appellant asked 'what the hell' it was all about. Appellant was told that it was a serious matter; that he was charged with murder. Appellant asked who, and the sheriff said James Vance had been killed. Appellant replied, 'I haven't killed anybody, but I am glad the son-of-a-bitch is dead.' Appellant was drunk when arrested.
Appellant and Brownlow had a different version of the events leading up to the killing and the manner in which it occurred, but the version stated was fully sustained by the evidence.
Appellant contends that the State erroneously proceeded upon the theory that the defendants entered into a conspiracy to murder Vance, and in this connection, says that the court erred in granting ...
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