Ratcliff v. State

• Citation: 201 Miss. 259,29 So.2d 321
• Decision Date: 10 March 1947
• Docket Number: 36342.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi
• Parties: RATCLIFF v. STATE.

29 So.2d 321

201 Miss. 259

RATCLIFF v. STATE.

No. 36342.

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 10, 1947

J. M. Carr and D. M. Anderson, both of Newton, for appellant.

Greek L. Rice, Atty. Gen., and R. O. Arrington, Asst. Atty. Gen for appellee.

L. A. SMITH, Sr., Justice.

Appellant was indicted and convicted for the murder of his father-in-law Will Loper, in the Circuit Court of Newton County, and sentenced to be electrocuted.

The evidence shows that some feeling existed between appellant and his father-in-law because of the latter's interference between him and his wife, and that on the day of the slaying appellant was seeking his wife, thought to be at her father's home. He found that she was there, and after some colloquy with his victim, appellant, who was then unarmed and threatened with a knife by his father-in-law, he said, repaired to his own home and armed himself with a shotgun. He returned to the site of the former encounter where, he contends, the slaying took place. His defense is, that his father-in-law, armed with a knife advanced toward him, apparently with the purpose of attacking him, whereupon he shot in self-defense, with the fatal result.

However the evidence for the State was to the effect that, finding his father-in-law at the woodpile of his home, appellant first marched him down the road at the point of a shotgun and then marched him back up the road, and back into his own yard and into his own kitchen, where he shot him through the back of the head and killed him. According to the evidence of the appellant, the jury might have been justified in acquitting him on the ground of self-defense. According to the evidence of the State, it was a plain case of premeditated and cold blooded murder. The jury, by its verdict of conviction in this case, adopted as true the testimony on behalf of the State.

On appeal here, appellant does not challenge the verdict of the jury as being against the weight of the evidence, and does not complain of any instructions, or of the admission or rejection of any evidence, in the trial below. The assignment of errors does complain that the lower court erred in overruling the motion for a new trial; in refusing 'to inquire into the sanity of the appellant by a proper legal trial, on suggestion as made touching the insanity of appellant'; and in sentencing the appellant to be electrocuted on a verdict 'rendered by a jury which was never sworn to try the issues'.

With reference to the last assignment of error, appellant says in his brief: 'We have no independent remembrance of the jury in this cause ever having been sworn to try the issues, and we have searched the record and failed to find therein any affirmative showing that such jury was ever sworn. The only mention in the record of the fact of swearing such jury is the allegation as contained in the judgment and sentence, and that does not cure the defect in the record.' The judgment of the Court recites: 'Both sides having announced ready for trial and a jury of twelve good and lawful men * * * who were duly and legally qualified, empanelled, and specially sworn to try the issue joined', etc. It is not necessary to cite authorities to sustain the proposition that such a recital in a solemn judgment of a court of record, that the jury was specially sworn, is sufficient evidence of the fact that it was, indeed, specially sworn to try the case. But see Section 1319, 34 C.J., Judgments, p. 907. This assignment is, therefore, overruled. However, nothing there or here said is to be construed as affecting the inconclusiveness of some recitals in certain judgments, constituting exceptions to the general rule, such as statements as to process having been served, in civil cases, where the record discloses that none was had; and others, perhaps. We, therefore, expressly limit our holding here to the recital in the judgment that the jury was specially sworn, and that generally judgment recitals are conclusive.

The attorneys for the appellant in their brief recite, referring to the facts in the record, that 'it indicates to our minds that there was either a cold blooded murderer or a lunatic on the rampage that morning. We are inclined to believe that it was a lunatic rather than a cold blooded murderer.' After the conviction of appellant his attorneys filed a motion for a new trial, on the ground of newly discovered evidence that 'the appellant is now insane and that he was insance at the time of said killing', and that they did not know of this evidence until after the trial. However, among the recitals of the motion for a new trial is this, 'these attorneys now state and aver that the defendant was in no mental condition to assist them in the defense on his trial and that that was unknown to these attorneys until they had almost completed the defense of the case', and further that 'these attorneys for the defendant now state they can prove the mental condition of the defendant' at the time of the killing and at the time of the trial. The record does not contain any disclosure of effort to bring the matter of the appellant's sanity before the court, when, as shown above, it came to the attention of his attorneys...