Patton v. State

• Decision Date: 10 February 1947
• Docket Number: 36298.
• Citation: 201 Miss. 410,29 So.2d 96
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: PATTON v. STATE.

29 So.2d 96

201 Miss. 410

PATTON v. STATE.

No. 36298.

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 10, 1947

Writ of Certiorari Granted June 23, 1947.

See 67 S.Ct. 1757.

L. J. Broadway, of Meridian, for appellant.

Greek L. Rice, Atty. Gen., and Geo. H. Ethridge Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

GRIFFITH Justice.

Appellant an adult young negro, was indicted, convicted, and sentenced to death for the murder of J. L. Meadows, a middle aged white man, the homicide having been in the furtherance of robbery.

In due time appellant made a motion to quash the indictment because no negro was on the grand jury panel, although there were qualified negro men in the county.

It has long been settled in this country that an intentional and arbitrarily systematic exclusion of negroes from grand and petit jury lists solely because of their race and color denies the equal protection of the laws to a negro charged with crime, so that at this time no parade of the authorities is necessary on that point.

There is no question raised here, nor could there be, that the jury laws in this state require that jurors shall be qualified electors and must be men, not women, and that a large number of persons are exempt from jury service, including, among others, physicians, ministers, and teachers.

This preliminary statement sends us at once to the facts, so far as shown by the record, as to which it must first be observed that the finding of facts by the circuit judge is to be accepted as true if supported by testimony and is not against the great weight of the dependable evidence. Some few witnesses were introduced who made conjectural estimates or guesses, admitted by them to be such, which may, therefore be laid aside. There was one, however,who had made, in 1944, a search of the records as to the qualified electors in the county, and made it carefully because to be used in a lawsuit over the matter of excluding the sale of beer in the county. His search revealed that there were more than 12,000 qualified electors in the county, of whom between 30 and 60 were colored, and of the latter the majority were teachers or preachers, exempt from jury service. The only other witness who had made a check of the records was the county judge. He made such a check in 1942. His conclusion from his check was that there were about 11,000 qualified electors in the county and of these the negro electors were less than 100, not specifying how many less.

The next witness, high in the order of dependability, is the circuit clerk, and this because he is the officer whose duties bring him nearest into intimate and daily contact with these records. He was questioned about District 1, in which the City of Meridian is located, and he said there were not over 50 colored electors in that district, of whom half were women. He was not questioned particularly as to those outside District 1. Next to the clerk in the possession of accuracy would be the sheriff who must from time to time go over these records, and his estimate of the number of negro electors in the county was from 40 to 50, and nearly all these from District 1.

As to the negro electors outside District 1, the members of the Board of Supervisors from those districts were called as witnesses and they testified particularly as to those districts. Their testimony showed that there were no negro electors in Districts 2 and 4; only one in District 3, and he a medical doctor exempt from jury service, and in District 5, four or five negro electors, and as to them no showing whatever was made whether they were teachers, or ministers or physicians, or whether or not otherwise exempt from jury service.

From the above summary it is to be seen that the trial judge was sufficiently supported, and therefore justified, in finding that there were not over 50 qualified negro electors in the county, of whom, according to the testimony of the clerk, not disputed in this particular, one half were women, which would leave 25 qualified negro male electors. He was justified also in accepting the testimony, not seriously disputed, that at least half the negro electors, men and women, were teachers or ministers or physicians, or were otherwise exempt from jury service. Of the 25 qualified negro male electors there would be left, therefore, as those not exempt, 12 or 13 available male negro electors as compared with 5,500 to 6,000 male white electors as to whom, after deducting 500 to 1,000 exempt, would leave a proportion of 5,000 nonexempt white jurors to 12 or 13 nonexempt negro jurors, or about one-fourth of one per cent negro jurors,--400 to 1.

It is undisputed that approximately 1,200 names of jurors had been put on the jury lists by the board of supervisors between May 9, 1945 and the time of this trial in February 1946. Applying to the 1,200 jurors the proportion of 400 whites to one negro, as above mentioned, it could be said that among the 1,200 there ought to have been three negroes, assuming for the purpose of this case that all other considerations were equal, and the proof is undisputed that within that time two or three negroes were put in those lists; and inasmuch as the movant had the burden of proof, this means that there were three negro jurors in the lists, wherefore to have put in more would have been no discriminate not against negro jurors but in their favor.

This is no such case, therefore, as was Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 61 S.Ct. 164, 85 L.Ed. 84, where there were as many as ten percent of qualified negro jurors and where less than one percent had ever been listed as jurors in such manner that they would be called, including the year in question. Nor is the fact that no negro had actually served in the county which we are now considering, within the year above mentioned, any controlling evidence, there being no proof whatever as to why the three mentioned did...