74 Miss. 271 | Miss. | 1896
delivered the opinion of the court.
• The appellant has been indicted, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment for life for the murder of one Nancy Miner. In the court below the defendant made a motion to quash the indictment, and when the motion was overruled he moved for a transfer of the cause from the state to the federal court. This motion was also denied. The action of the court in refusing to quash the indictment, and in denying the petition for a transfer of the cause, constitute the principal errors assigned. The motion and the petition set out, in effect, the same facts,. and affidavits of several persons were filed that the matters therein stated were, as affiants believed, true. The purpose of the motion seems to have been primarily to assail the validity of all the laws passed since the adoption of our recent constitution, and of that constitution itself, on the ground that said constitution and laws are obnoxious to the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States. The motion is too long to be inserted in this opinion. It states some facts, many inferences and deductions, and an argument to show that the conditions resulting from the adoption of the constitution are incompatible with the rights guaranteed to the colored race by the fourteenth amendment. Compressed within reasonable limits, the substance of the motion is that the constitutional convention was composed of 134 members, of which 133 were whites and one only a negro; that the purpose and object of
We will recur to the contents of the motion hereafter, for the purpose of considering such averments as seem more nearly related to the subject under investigation, viz.., the competency and legality of the grand jury by which the indictment against appellant was returned. At this point in the investigation it is sufficient to say that we have no power to investigate or decide upon the private, individual purposes of those who framed the constitution, the political or racial complexion of the body of the convention, and have no concern with the representation of the state in congress. We can deal only with the perfected work — the written constitution adopted and put in operation by the convention. We have heretofore decided that it was competent for the convention to put the constitution' in operation without submitting it for ratification by a vote of the people. Sproule v. Fredericks, 69 Miss., 898.
We find nothing in the constitutional provisions challenged by the appellant which discriminates against any citizen by reason of his race, color or previous condition of servitude. Section 241 declares who are qualified electors, sec. 242 makes it the duty of the legislature to provide for the registration of persons entitled to vote, and sec. 244 declares that ‘‘ on and after the first day of January, A.D. 1892, every elector shall,
We have searched the record in vain to discover any averment that the officers of the state charged with the duty of selecting jurors in any manner exercised the power devolved upon them to the prejudice of the appellant, by excluding from the jury list members of the race to which he belongs. The motion contains much irrelevant matter, set up with great prolixity, and in involved and obscure language. But repeated and careful examination conducts us to the conclusion that much of its seeming obscurity vanishes when we read the motion in the light of the opinion entertained by counsel as to how the supposed discrimination has been made. He did not intend to charge, by the motion, that the officers by whom the grand jury was selected violated the law, but that they were, by the law under which they acted, required to select jurors from certain lists furnished to them by the officers charged with the duty of holding elections in the state, and that these election officers, in making such lists, discriminated against the race of appellant. In this view, the motion was properly denied, for the reason that jurors are not selected from or with reference
Our laws in reference to elections, and in reference to the selection of grand and petit juries, are totally distinct. To be an elector, or to serve upon a jury, one must be registered as a voter. But the acts and doings of those charged with holding elections can exercise no influence upon those by whom juries are selected. One may be denied the right to vote by the election officers, and yet be permitted to sit upon juries, grand or petit; and one may be ineligible to sit upon a jury, and yet qualified and permitted to vote. By sec. 2él of the constitution, it is provided that ‘ ‘ every male inhabitant of this state, except idiots, insane persons and Indians not taxed, who is a citizen of the United States, twenty-one years old and upwards, who has resided in this state two years, and one year in the election district, or in the incorporated city or town, in which he offers to vote, and who is duly registered as provided in this article, and who has never been convicted of bribery, burglary, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretenses, perjury, forgery, embezzlement or bigamy,' and who has paid, on or before the first day of February of the year in which he shall offer to vote, all taxes which may have been legally demanded of him, and which he has had an opportunity of paying according to law, for the two preceding years, and who shall produce to the officer holding the election satisfactory evidence that he has paid said taxes, is declared to be a qualified elector; but any minister of the gospel in charge of an organized church shall be entitled to vote after six months’ residence in the election district, if otherwise qualified. ’ ’ Sec.
Section 2358 of the code prescribes how the jury lists shall be made. It provides that “the board of supervisors at the
As votes are cast, one of the clerks of the election takes down on a list the names of the voters, while the other enters a
There is no suggestion in the motion that the jury commissioners were guilty of any fraud or discrimination in selecting the jurors. If in truth there was no registration book in the count}'' to guide them in their selection of the jurors, their action in making the jury list was irregular, and, upon objection made before the grand jury was impaneled, the panel would have been quashed. Purvis v. State, 71 Miss., 706. But our statute provides that “ before swearing any grand juror as such, he shall be examined by the court on oath touching his qualification, and after the grand jurors shall have been sworn and impaneled, no objection shall be raised, by plea or otherwise, to the grand jury, but the impaneling of the grand jury shall be conclusive evidence of its competency and qualification, but any party interested may challenge or except to the array for
In Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S., 370, and Gibson v. Mississippi, 162 U. S., 565, the supreme court of the United States has thoroughly discussed the subject of the right of a negro to the impartial protection of the law, and has clearly expressed the circumstances under which, and the means by which, that right is to be vindicated. If, by the constitution or laws of the state, negroes are, by reason of their race, color, or previous condition of servitude, excluded from juries, or in such other manner discriminated against as that a fair and impartial trial cannot be had in the state courts, then a negro proceeded against in the courts of the state may have his cause removed to the courts of the United States for trial. If there is no discrimination by the law, but the complaint is that by the act of the officers of the state, charged with the administration of fair- and impartial laws, discrimination has been made against the race, the defendant may not have a removal of his cause, but must make his defense in the state courts, and appeal from the final judgment of the supreme court of the state to the supreme court of the United States.
In Gibson v. Mississippi, supra, the supreme court of the United States declared that neither the constitution nor laws of this state prescribed any rule for or mode of procedure in the trial of criminal cases which is not equally applicable to all citizens of the United States, and to all persons within the jurisdiction of the state, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude. We can discover nothing in the record which shows that the appellant, either by the laws of this state or by their administration, has been denied the right of a fair and impartial trial. The motion to quash the indictment, and for removal of the case, were properly overruled. We have dealt with the case upon the assumption that the facts set out in the motion are true. No objection was made in the court below because the proof was made by affidavits instead of by
The error assigned touching the action of the court in admitting evidence of the state of feeling of appellant towards the woman Lavinia, at whom the shot was fired that killed Nancy Miner, is not maintainable. The defendant himself, on cross-examination of the witness Eliza Miner, drew out this evidence. But, aside from this, the evidence was entirely competent as tending to show quo animo the fatal shot was fired.
The judgment is affirmed.