State v. Pool
| Citation | 23 So. 503,50 La.Ann. 449 |
| Decision Date | 18 April 1898 |
| Docket Number | 12,768 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Louisiana |
| Parties | STATE OF LOUISIANA v. JIM POOL |
Argued April 9, 1898.
APPEAL from the Sixteenth Judicial District Court for the Parish of St. Helena. Reid, J.
M. J Cunningham, Attorney General, and Duncan S. Kemp, District Attorney (P. A. Simmons, Jr., of Counsel), for Plaintiff Appellee.
W. C Pipkin and W. T. Holland, for Defendant, Appellant.
The defendant was indicted for the murder of a colored girl under fourteen years of age, and appeals from a verdict of guilty and sentence of death, relying upon three bills of exceptions which were reserved to the ruling of the court during the progress of the trial.
The first bill relates to the declination of the trial judge to grant a continuance of the case based upon two grounds: (1) The impossibility of procuring the attendance of an important witness who was absent; and (2) that sufficient time had not been allowed counsel for the examination of the case and the preparation of the defence of the accused -- the homicide having been committed only a few days prior to the finding of the indictment on the 25th of February, 1898, and the cause having been assigned for trial on the 1st of March following.
The defence was that the homicide was accidental. The substance of the defendant's motion is that his witness, Louis Brown, was temporarily absent from the parish, and for that reason he could not have been summoned and was not summoned by the sheriff, after seasonable and proper effort had been made, as is evidenced by his return upon the summons which had been issued for him.
That he could have testified, had he been present, to his declarations, appearance and demeanor after the homicide, as well as to the other facts and circumstances of the case confirmatory and corroborative of the testimony in the case in his favor.
And it is further to the effect that he was incarcerated in jail without the benefit of bail, as soon as he surrendered himself to the sheriff; and being unable to employ counsel the court assigned counsel to represent him. But that counsel assigned to him were at the time engaged in the trial of other important cases in that court -- the District Court being at the time in session -- and could not then give immediate attention to the case; so that when the case was called for trial, three days later, on the day fixed for trial, they had not had an opportunity of conferring with the accused, and preparing and formulating his defence, and were not prepared to go into the trial of such an important case under the circumstances related.
It appears from the record that the homicide was committed during a Sunday, in the house where the girl lived, and within the hearing and in immediate proximity to several persons.
It appears that it occurred at some ten miles distance from the court house, but that the accused was on his way to the sheriff's office to surrender himself when he was arrested and at once placed in jail.
The indictment of the accused followed a few days afterward; and within four days after that, one of them being a Sunday, he had been tried, convicted and sentenced to the extreme penalty of the law.
It is not denied that the defendant was kept in close confinement between the time when he was first arrested and the trial and it is not denied that the counsel who were appointed by the court to defend his cause were closely occupied in the trial of other important criminal cases in that co...
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