Quinn v. State

49 So. 2d 396, 210 Miss. 304, 1951 Miss. LEXIS 268
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 18, 1951
DocketNo. 37988
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 49 So. 2d 396 (Quinn 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
Quinn v. State, 49 So. 2d 396, 210 Miss. 304, 1951 Miss. LEXIS 268 (Mich. 1951).

Opinions

McGehee, CL J.

On an appeal from a former conviction in this case, we reversed and remanded the cause as reported in Quinn v. State, Miss., 46 So. (2d) 802, wherein we stated that for all practical purposes the case was identical with that of Gathings v. State, Miss., 46 So. (2d) 800, decided [305]*305on the same day, June 12,1950. The ground for reversal was more fully discussed in the opinion rendered in the companion case of Gathings v. State, supra, at that time. In both cases it was then shown that three alleged accomplices, “Tojo” Harris, Jack Valiant and Chester Walker, had implicated their co-defendants, Quinn and Gathings, in the stealing of the nine head of cattle in question from the pasture of Mr. H. G. Nason, and that these alleged accomplices had sworn positively and unequivocally before the jury in each case as to the participation of the said two defendants in the theft. However, on a motion for a new trial, they each took the witness stand and fully repudiated their entire story as related to the jury, saying that everything they had testified to on the trial was absolutely false, disavowed the alleged participation of the said two defendants in the crime, and denied that they themselves had taken any part therein or knew anything about the theft of the cattle, notwithstanding their previous pleas of guilty which were not shown to have been withdrawn. They testified that they had not been influenced by any one to change their story, but were doing so freely and voluntarily after being warned by the court of their right not to incriminate themselves by an admission of perjury in their former testimony.

Since the jury on the former trial did not have the benefit of the fact that these material witnesses for the State had repudiated their trial testimony, we thought that the cases against both Quinn and Gathings should be reversed in order that another jury could determine which, if either, of the stories against them were true.

We had not thought it an altogether hopeless prospect that these three alleged accomplices would at least adhere to either their testimony on the first trial or on the other hand to their testimony on the motion for a new trial. But such did not prove to be the case, and the appellant Henry Quinn was convicted on the second trial on an altered version of what these witnesses had'testi[306]*306fied to on the first trial, and wholly contrary to what they swore on the motion for a new trial. In view of this situation and because of the facts hereinabove stated, the Judges are unable to agree upon a decision that would finally dispose of the case on this appeal. Two of the Judges are in favor of discharging the defendant, one of the Judges is in favor of reversing the case for a new trial on the ground that the verdict is contrary to the weight of the credible evidence, and there is not a sufficient number in favor of an affirmance to bring about that result, three votes being required to affirm. Consequently, the case must be reversed for a new trial for the want of a sufficient number of votes to affirm the conviction.

On the first trial, the witness “Tojo”, who' plead guilty to burglary at the same term of court and who said that he had stolen cattle from Mr. Nason on about five former occasions, testified that eight white-faced red steers and one black one were driven up to the fence of Mr. Nason’s pasture shortly after midnight on Saturday, May 7, 1948, and then through a four-strand wire fence, when a pole was put on one of the wires, and that five of the white-faced red steers were then loaded onto the defendant’s, Quinn’s, red Ford truck, and that the three other steers of similar description and the black steer were loaded onto a Chevrolet pickup truck of Gathings. On the second trial, this witness who lived on Mr. Nason’s place and helped to feed his cattle testified that they “broke two strands of the fence wire, and raised up the top one ’ ’ to' get the steers through the fence and load them on the trucks.

On the first trial, “Tojo” also swore that he and Chester Walker left the pasture on the appellant-Quinn’s, truck, and that said defendant was driving it, and that Jack Valiant and Shorty Thomas left ahead on the Gathings truck with the defendant Gathings driving it. On the second trial, he swore that he left the pasture on the Gathings truck in company with Shorty Thomas and Gathings, and that Jack Valiant and Chester Walker [307]*307were on the Qninn truck with Qninn driving it. Some of the Judges think that the jury should have reasonably inferred that if “Tojo” had been on either the Chevrolet pickup truck with Gathings, hauling four of the cattle, or on the big Ford truck with Quinn hauling five head of cattle, he would have remembered which one, and that his telling a different story on the second trial could be explained only upon the theory that he had ridden on neither the truck of Gathings nor that of Quinn, and that when testifying on the second trial he had for that reason forgotten what he swore to on the first trial.

On the first trial, “Tojo” further swore that after leaving the Nason pasture the twu trucks came into Highway No. 8, some distance to the north, and that there a car pulled out ahead of them and that it was followed by the said Gathings ’ truck and the Quinn truck on to Highway No. 45 and then proceeded thereon to a place beyond Egypt, and later turned off the said main highway into a gravel road leading to a barn; that at this barn they saw two white men and a colored man, the white men being Mr. Jack Thompson and Mr. Ed (Glinn) who had preceded them in the car from where they entered into said Highway No. 8; and that at this barn the nine steers were unloaded. That thereupon he saw Mr. Jack Thompson count out money to the appellant, Henry Quinn, and that the latter stated to Mr. Thompson that this is only $500' and it is not enough, and that Thompson then agreed to and undertook to pay him another $100. That he, “Tojo”, was to receive $100! as his part of the proceeds, but that Quinn failed to pay him, saying that he did not have the change. He also testified that he saw Mr. Thompson pay Gathings what Gathings stated was $300. He further testified on the first trial that they then left the barn and returned to a beer joint near Mr. Nason’s pasture, and there separated. That the witness was arrested on the next Friday near the middle of the day and placed in the city jail at West Point. In the meantime he had made no [308]*308attempt to collect the $100 allegedly promised him. As to what occurred thereafter will be stated later.

On the second trial, “Tojo” was asked:

“Q. Did you see (at the barn where they saw the white men) anybody get paid off? A. Yes, sir.
“Q. In money? A. I didn’t see what they got.” On the second trial, the witness, after having stated on the first trial that he and Chester Walker rode from the pasture on the Quinn truck with him, and on the second trial that he was on the Gathings’ truck with Jack Valiant, Shorty Thomas and Gathings, was asked:
“Q. Did you go to Okolona? A. No, sir.
“Q. Did the truck you were riding on go to Okolona? A. No, sir.
“Q. Did Oliver Gathings go to Okolona? A.

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Related

Wright v. State
54 So. 2d 735 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1951)

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Bluebook (online)
49 So. 2d 396, 210 Miss. 304, 1951 Miss. LEXIS 268, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/quinn-v-state-miss-1951.