Strickland v. State

269 So. 2d 340, 1972 Miss. LEXIS 1222
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 20, 1972
DocketNo. 46940
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 269 So. 2d 340 (Strickland 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
Strickland v. State, 269 So. 2d 340, 1972 Miss. LEXIS 1222 (Mich. 1972).

Opinion

ROBERTSON, Justice:

The appellant, Kenneth Ray Strickland, a white male adult, was indicted, tried and convicted in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial District of Jones County, of raping a 20-year old white woman. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.

The' appellant has assigned 9 errors which he contends were committed by the trial court. Most of these are in areas where the trial court has wide latitude and discretion.

Points I and VIII concern the order of proof. The appellant contends that by allowing the State to put the prosecutrix on the witness stand last the court unduly restricted the appellant in his cross-examination of the prosecution’s witnesses. The State put on five witnesses in this order: Officer Jim Smith of the Laurel Police force, who received the telephone call informing the police that a rape was taking place; Simon Shanks of the Laurel Police force, who investigated; Thomas L. Johnson, who was the companion of the prose-cutrix; Dr. Zambrono, who examined and treated the prosecutrix immediately after the rape; and the prosecutrix, Mrs. Barbara Ann Cooley.

This Court has carefully read the transcript of the evidence, and it appears to us that the proof was adduced in an orderly and logical sequence. In any event, this Court said in Flynn v. Kurn, 183 Miss. 413, 184 So. 160 (1938):

‘The order of judicial investigation, including the time and manner of introducing evidence, is, and of necessity must be, committed to the sound discretion of the trial judge; and appellate courts should not interfere to reverse the exercise of this discretion by a trial court unless such exercise appears to have been had arbitrarily, capriciously, or unjustly.’ See Winterton v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 73 Miss. 831, 20 So. 157, [342]*342158.” (Emphasis added). 183 Miss. at 427, 184 So. at 164.

To the same effect is Thiede v. Utah, 159 U.S. 510, 16 S.Ct. 62, 40 L.Ed. 237 (1895), wherein the Supreme Court of the United States said:

“We may remark, in regard to other alleged errors in the introduction of testimony, that the order in which testimony shall be admitted is largely within the discretion of the trial court." (Emphasis added). 159 U.S. at 519, 16 S.Ct. at 66, 40 L.Ed. at 242.

A recent case on this point is Nelson v. United States, 415 F.2d 483 (5th Cir. 1969), wherein the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said:

‘‘The order of proof at trial is a matter almost wholly within the discretion of the trial court. United States v. Harris, 391 F.2d 348 (6th Cir. 1968); Strauss v. United States, 311 F.2d 926 (5th Cir. 1963); Anthony v. United States, 256 F.2d 50 (9th Cir. 1958).” (Emphasis added) 415 F.2d at 487.

We cannot say that the trial court unduly restricted the appellant in his cross-examination of the prosecution’s witnesses when it allowed the State to present its evidence in the sequence in which it did.

The appellant complained in Point II that the trial court unduly restricted the appellant in the presentation of defense testimony. Appellant says that the court erred when it sustained the objection to Harry Wells’ testimony. Harry Wells was the projectionist at the drive-in theatre attended by the prosecutrix and Thomas Johnson prior to the rape. The appellant argues, that because this movie depicted scenes of sex and violence and was restricted to adult viewers, that Wells’ testimony was admissible to show the mood and emotions of the prosecutrix. The trial court properly excluded this testimony because it -was irrelevant and immaterial.

The appellant contends that the trial court erred in sustaining the state’s objection to the testimony of Charles Beard that he had a conversation with the prosecutrix and that the proxecutrix refused to say that the appellant raped her. The record reflects that this witness stated that the conversation took place before August 31st, the date the crime was committed. The trial court was entirely correct in excluding it.

Appellant next complains that the trial court erred in refusing to allow the reputation witness, Barlow, to testify as to appellant’s reputation for peace and violence. It clearly appears from the record that this witness was not qualified to give an opinion because he admitted that it had been over 10 years since he had known the people in the appellant’s community and that even when the appellant and Barlow worked at the same plant that they worked in different departments and that he did' not know the names of anyone who worked with the appellant.

Under Point III appellant contends that the trial court erred in allowing the district attorney too much latitude in the cross-examination of reputation witnesses for Strickland. Here again the appellant is in a field where the trial court of necessity must have wide latitude and discretion in ruling on questions asked in the cross-examination of witnesses. The district attorney did make inquiry of the reputation witnesses as to whether they were familiar with the facts of this case. However, he did not go into detail although he came close at times. We cannot say that the trial court abused its admittedly wide discretion in allowing these questions on cross-examination.

Appellant charges under Point IV of his Assignment of Errors that: “The trial Court erred in rebuking counsel for the defendant in the presence of the jury, and refusing to caution the jury to ignore the remarks of the trial Court in that regard.” [343]*343The questions asked the prosecutrix by defense counsel that led to this rebuke were:

“Q. The biggest portion of your testimony is a lie, isn’t it ?
“A. No, sir, what you said was a lie! “BY MR. SULLIVAN:
“Court, please, we object to counsel
“BY THE COURT:
“What was the question?
“BY MR. BUCKLEY:
“If the major portion of her testimony was a lie.
“BY THE COURT:
“I am going to instruct counsel that if you make such a statement as that again, you are going to be in contempt of court.”

When this matter was taken up further out of the presence of the jury, defense counsel moved for a mistrial, and the trial judge, in overruling the motion, said:

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Related

Bennett v. State
76 So. 3d 736 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2011)
Lanier v. State
291 So. 2d 695 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1974)
McNeil v. State
289 So. 2d 694 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1974)
Oliver v. State
285 So. 2d 897 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1973)
Pace v. State
285 So. 2d 906 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1973)

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Bluebook (online)
269 So. 2d 340, 1972 Miss. LEXIS 1222, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/strickland-v-state-miss-1972.