West v. State
| Decision Date | 09 June 1902 |
| Citation | 32 So. 298,80 Miss. 710 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | STEPHEN WEST v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI |
March 1902
FROM the circuit court of Warren county HON. GEORGE ANDERSON Judge.
West appellant, was indicted, tried, and convicted of murder, and sentenced to death. He appealed to the supreme court. The opinion sufficiently states the case.
Affirmed.
J. A. Ramsey, for appellant.
The motion of the defendant to quash the venire should have been sustained, for either of two reasons: (1) The manner of selecting the venire was an innovation in criminal jurisprudence. (2) The jurors were never served with any process.
Section 2386, code 1892, directs the course to be pursued in getting before the court the special venire which has been asked for by the defendant. Neither of these courses prescribed by law was followed in this case.
The sheriff did not go out and summon the jurors; he went into his office, and there with assistance selected the men, listed them, seven from each district, and then gave the names of those whom he had listed and chosen to deputies to be served by them with process. This course was a flagrant departure from the law, established rules and precedents, and constitutes reversible error. The mode of service adopted in this case to get the venire into court was entirely foreign to law.
It will not do to say that the notification served the purpose to get the jurors in court, and that therefore the defendant below has no cause of complaint. We could justify a lynching with the same logic. The law is the supreme power and direction to which we must look for impartial judgment on earth, be that judgment good or ill; and if time honored customs and solemnly revered laws be laid aside, and all manner of whimsical "short cuts" adopted by the courts to rush a man on trial for his life through the mill, such course would indicate a laxity entirely too great. To notify jurors is not to summons them; the statute provides for them to be summoned.
The defendant should have had tendered to him a jury of twelve competent men to try his case. One of the jurors swore that he had not paid his taxes, although liable to pay, and another swore that he was not a registered voter of the county of Warren, where the cause was being tried. Defendant then and there demanded to have tendered him twelve competent men to sit as jurors and try his case, but his demand was not granted.
The second instruction for the state was erroneous, because it directs the jury that they may return into court a verdict when they have not agreed to one.
W. L. Easterling, Assistant Attorney-General, for appellee.
It appears affirmatively that the jury boxes were exhausted, and therefore it became necessary to issue the writ to the sheriff commanding him to summon the venire men from the body of the county.
The sheriff has a discretion necessarily, and he is not bound to go out and summons every man he meets. It is hard to see how anything but a benefit could result to the defendant by such precaution by the sheriff as was taken in this case to obtain qualified jurors.
The defendant cannot complain, having been tried by a competent jury, of mere irregularities or informalities in the manner of selecting and summoning them. Code 1892, § 2389; 12 Am. & Eng. Enc. P. & P., 297; Lee v. State, 45 Miss. 114; Head v. State, 44 Miss. 731.
Defendant declined to challenge the jurors whose disqualifications had been previously made known, and cannot complain that they served.
The instruction for the state directing the jury as to the form of their verdict, in the event they believed the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but could not agree on the punishment, has been approved by this court too often to need argument or authorities on the point.
Argued orally by J. A. Ramsey, for appellant.
Steven West was convicted in the circuit court of Warren county of the murder of Minnie Fisher, and sentenced to be...
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Quick v. State
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Nelson v. State
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