Pittman v. State

• Decision Date: 02 December 1929
• Docket Number: 28262
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: PITTMAN v. STATE

124 So. 761

155 Miss. 745

PITTMAN v. STATE

No. 28262

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 2, 1929

Division A

Suggestion of Error Overruled January 13, 1930.

APPEAL from circuit court of Forrest county, HON. W. J. PACK, Judge.

Lloyd Pittman was convicted of selling intoxicating liquor, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

Morris & Wingo, of Hattiesburg, for appellant.

It will be observed from the record in this case, page 89, that timely objections were made to this line of argument, of the county prosecuting attorney followed by a motion to enter a mistrial, which was overruled by the court; and after a special bill of exceptions was presented to the presiding judge and he refused to sign same, counsel for appellant executed the same by affixing their signatures and obtaining the signature of one other attorney.

This is in accordance with section 600, Hemingway's Code of 1927.

The above statute provides that it shall be lawful for two attorneys who may be present at the time of the giving or making of the opinion, decision or charge, and of the refusal of the judge to sign the bill of exceptions, to sign the same . . . In this case three attorneys signed the refused bill of exceptions, two of whom being of counsel for appellant. The other being a stranger to the case, and being the only other attorney present. This is a compliance with the letter of the statute.

W. A Shipman, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

This court is precluded from a consideration of the alleged special bill of exceptions for the reason that it was not properly taken, was not properly before the circuit court and is not to be considered here.

Section 795, Code 1996, section 593, Hemingway's 1927 Code; Section 796, Code of 1906, section 594, Hemingway's 1927 Code.

It appears in this case that the judge refused to sign the special bill of exceptions tendered him and thereupon the two attorneys of record for the appellant and one other member of the bar signed the same as appears by their certificate at page 34 of the record.

Section 798, Code of 1906, section 600, Hemingway's 1927 Code.

This statute is not authority for the two attorneys representing the appellant to sign the special bill of exceptions on the refusal of the judge to do so.

OPINION

Cook, J.

The appellant, Lloyd Pittman, was convicted in the county court of Forrest county on a charge of selling intoxicating liquor, and was sentenced to pay a fine of five hundred dollars and to serve a term of ninety days in the county jail, and from this conviction and sentence he appealed to the circuit court. The circuit court affirmed the judgment of the county court, and from this judgment of the circuit court he prosecuted this appeal.

The appellant assigns numerous grounds for the reversal of the judgment of the court below, but, in our opinion, none of them constitute reversible error. The only question presented by the record, which we deem of sufficient importance to merit discussion, involves the sufficiency of a purported special bill of exceptions setting forth certain language alleged to have been used by the county attorney in his argument before the jury, and which is assigned as error. The purported bill of exceptions, as the same appears in the record, is not signed by the trial judge, but there is attached thereto a certificate, signed by three attorneys which recites, among other things, that they were present during the argument of the cause by the county attorney, that the statements in the said bill of exceptions are true and correct as therein stated, and that said attorneys whose names were signed thereto had no interest in and did not represent the defendant, Pittman, in the trial of said cause, and that the trial judge refused to sign the special bill of exceptions when presented to him for his signature. The record shows that two of the three attorneys who signed the certificate to this bill of exceptions represented the appellant, Pittman,...