Winegarden v. State

• Decision Date: 05 February 1906
• Citation: 39 So. 1013,87 Miss. 264
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: DANIEL WINEGARDEN v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

39 So. 1013

87 Miss. 264

DANIEL WINEGARDEN v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 5, 1906

November 1905

FROM the circuit court of Jackson county, HON. WILLIAM T MCDONALD, Judge.

Winegarden the appellant, was convicted of grand larceny. He petitioned the court for bail, pending an appeal from the conviction but his petition was denied, and from the judgment denying bail pending appeal he appealed to the supreme court. The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Affirmed.

Barber & Mize, for appellant.

Code 1892, § 66. So far as we are able to ascertain, this section has never been construed or passed upon in this state except in Hill v. State, 64 Miss. 431, where the only grounds pressed were that appellant's crop needed his attention, his neglect of which would cause his financial ruin, and that his wife was a frail and delicate woman. This is not the instant case at all.

The peculiar circumstances in the instant case bring it within the statute, and the allegations set forth in appellant's petition, supported by the testimony taken on the hearing thereof, warrant the granting of bail to appellant and make it the court's duty to grant appellant bail.

The object of the statute is to look to all the circumstances relied on for the granting of bail. In this case, appellant, a white physician, had a large practice in Mobile, Alabama, as disclosed by the testimony--from six to eight patients visited his office daily; much of his work was charitable, as, notwithstanding the business he had, appellant was a poor man; he was the only doctor in Mobile county who practiced medicine on the theory that certain roots and herbs which he prescribed and furnished possessed medicinal properties not found in drugs; he relieved much suffering which other doctors had failed to alleviate; and great suffering was resulting and would result among his patients by reason of his confinement, there being no other physician in Mobile or Mobile county who could treat them by his methods. The testimony also disclosed that, during his absence while he was on trial, numbers of patients, the sick, the lame, etc., were calling at his office for treatment.

A further strong reason why appellant should be granted bail, we contend, lies in the fact that he had an invalid daughter who needed his constant medical treatment, and whose case he best understood, and who would suffer by lack of said treatment. Another fact which should plead in his behalf is that his wife is so frail and delicate as to be practically helpless and destitute while her husband is confined in jail.

Appellant is a man forty-nine years of age, in very bad health, suffering greatly, and constantly taking medicine when not confined--a man upon whom confinement in jail would in all probability produce serious or fatal results.

R. V. Fletcher, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.

Appellant has been convicted of grand larceny and given a...