Pegram v. State

89 So. 2d 846, 228 Miss. 860, 1956 Miss. LEXIS 575
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 15, 1956
DocketNo. 40160
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 89 So. 2d 846 (Pegram v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pegram v. State, 89 So. 2d 846, 228 Miss. 860, 1956 Miss. LEXIS 575 (Mich. 1956).

Opinions

Hall, J.

This is the second appearance of this case in this Court. On the former appeal appellant had been convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to a term of twenty-[864]*864five years in the state penitentiary. For various errors committed in the trial of the case we reversed the judgment of the circuit court and remanded the case for another trial. 78 So. 2d 153, not yet reported in the State Reports.

On the second trial of this case appellant was again convicted and sentenced to serve a term of twenty-five years in the state penitentiary. The record shows without substantial dispute that a beer joint owned by W. E. Farr and located in Clay County near the Webster County line, and a distance of about thirty or thirty-five miles from the City of West Point, was robbed at about 12:30 or 1:00 o’clock A.M. on the morning of June 2,1953. The place had closed for the night and was in charge of a Negro named Andy Rimmer, who slept in a room in the rear of the place. There was a knock at the front door which awakened him, and he went to answer the knock and saw two men who at the point of a pistol forced their way into the place. They took Andy’s pistol from under the pillow where he was sleeping and securely taped his legs together with wide adhesive tape and also taped his eyes and his mouth so that he could make no outcry. They took a quantity of money from the cash register and also took all of the personal money which Andy had and required him to sit down on the cot where he had been sleeping. They then backed a truck up near the front door and proceeded to load the truck with approximately 300 cases of Budweiser beer, which necessarily required some time. Andy did not see all of the men engaged in the robbery. He did see the first two who came to the door and whose faces were covered, but he estimated from the noise that occurred in the carrying out of the beer and loading it on the truck that four men were engaged in the robbery. During the course of the robbery, while the beer was being loaded, an automobile drove up and the occupants saw two men, one being at the front of the truck and the other at the rear, and [865]*865they both had their faces covered. One of them ordered the occupants of the car to get out but instead they drove away, and one of the men fired a shotgun. It was shown, practically without dispute, that the truck in question was the property of W. R. Scott of Columbus, who was also indicted for his connection in the robbery.

The only witness who testified that the appellant participated in this robbery was one Ernest Rose, who testified that he came from Texas to Columbus in May 1953 at the request of Walter Scott, who is the same person as W. R. Scott above mentioned. He first lived at a tourist court across the river bridge at Columbus. He said that on .Saturday, May 30,1953, he first met the appellant at his tourist cabin; that he and Robert Ballow were already at the cabin and that Walter Scott came there and brought the appellant with him, and that the appellant planned the robbery on this first meeting. He testified that after the robbery they stored the beey at a farm house near the Alabama line and that the appellant arranged for sale of it later. He said that the beer was sold in 100 case lots and that the first sale was made to Hood Luther in Pontotoc County and that he was present on this occasion. He further testified that on the following Saturday, June 6, a Bill Wilson wired $300 from Tupelo to Scott at Columbus and that Scott divided this money with him the following morning.

It was shown without dispute that the shotgun which was fired on the occasion of the robbery was the property of Scott, and it was further shown by a representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation laboratories in Washington that the shell ejected therefrom and left on the ground at the scene of the robbery was fired from Scott’s gun. Rose testified that he did not cover his face at any time during the robbery, which is in direct conflict with the testimony of Andy Rimmer. He further testified that he held the shotgun on Rimmer, but Rimmer said that he did not see a shotgun and that he only [866]*866saw a pistol. There are numerous other conflicts in the evidence and in Rose’s version at the first trial and at the second trial. A few weeks after this rohhery another similar robbery was committed in Monroe County, in which it is admitted that Pegram did not participate. Prior to this trial Rose had been convicted in Monroe County and sentenced to a life term in the penitentiary, which was later reduced to a term of twenty-five years on the last day of the Monroe County court. He also entered a plea of guilty to the indictment in this case, but has never yet been sentenced and at the time of this trial he was brought from the penitentiary at Parchman to West Point to testify as a witness. Rose is thirty-one years of age and, with the exception of two years, has spent his entire life in the penitentiary since he was age fifteen for various and sundry crimes committed over the country.

A highway patrolman testified that sometime after the robbery he apprehended an automobile in which Ernest Rose, Robert Ballow, Mack Woods and Walter Scott were riding, and he found Andy Rimmer’s pistol in the car, but the appellant was not present on that occasion. It also appears that Scott’s shotgun was recovered from the home of Ernest Rose by virtue of a search warrant.

It is significant to note that the agent of the Western Union Telegraph Company at Tupelo, with whom was placed the $300 for wiring to W. R. Scott at Columbus, testified about the incident and identified her record of the transaction and, even though the appellant was sitting in the courtroom at the time, she made no effort to identify him as the person who had wired the money, and there is not one word of evidence in the whole record from any witness except Ernest Rose which tends in any way to implicate the appellant in this robbery.

The ticket agent for the Southern Airways at the Tupelo Airport testified with reference to the record of the Southern Airways which shows that a Mr. Pe[867]*867gram, without giving any initials, appears on the manifest list as a passenger from Tnpelo to Memphis on May 30, 1953, leaving Tupelo at 8:15 P.M. This agent wrote up the manifest list and signed it and he testified that the Mr. Pegram shown on the list is the defendant in this ease, and that he personally sold to the defendant the ticket to Memphis on May 30, 1953. The manifest list of the Southern Airways also shows that on June 2, 1953, Bill Pegram bought a ticket and was a passenger on the plane from Memphis to Columbus, leaving Memphis at 1:00 P.M. Tuesday, June 2, 1953.

The appellant’s wife testified that they have been married over eighteen years and live in Memphis and have one child, a daughter, of the age of fifteen years. She said that the appellant formerly owned a stock car racetrack in Tupelo and later was employed in Columbus; that at the time of this robbery the appellant did not own an automobile and came home every weekend, usually flying by plane. She further said that he flew into Memphis on the night of May 30,1953, which was a Saturday night, and that she and her daughter and a brother-in-law who had an automobile, met him at the airport between 8:00 and 9:00 P.M., and that the appellant spent that night at home and was at home on Sunday morning.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
89 So. 2d 846, 228 Miss. 860, 1956 Miss. LEXIS 575, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pegram-v-state-miss-1956.