Walker v. State

91 So. 2d 548, 229 Miss. 540, 1956 Miss. LEXIS 638
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 17, 1956
DocketNo. 40269
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 91 So. 2d 548 (Walker 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
Walker v. State, 91 So. 2d 548, 229 Miss. 540, 1956 Miss. LEXIS 638 (Mich. 1956).

Opinion

Lee, J.

Oliver Lee Walker was indicted for, and convicted of, feloniously receiving stolen property; and from a sentence of three years in the state penitentiary, he appealed.

The State’s proof showed that, on November 30, 1955, a trailer owned by Nott Wheeler, in which was loaded about two thousand pounds of his snapped cotton, disappeared from his shed. Several days later, the trailer was found stripped of its wheels and tires. The tires of which Wheeler had kept a record of the serial numbers, were found on the pickup truck of Willie Rogers and the truck of Sammy McNeil. Rogers and McNeil, together with W. T. McCoy, upon an indictment for larceny of the trailer and cotton, pled guilty. These three parties testified as witnesses for the State. They said that they hooked Willie Rogers ’ pickup truck to the trailer containing the cotton, and sitting under Nott Wheeler’s shed, and pulled it over to Oliver Lee Walker’s house. They waked him up late at night, and he was present when they transferred the cotton into his trailer. They then drove the empty trailer down the road and got rid of it. McNeil also testified that he did not have a marketing card, necessary in selling cotton, and sometime before this, he had talked to Walker about ginning some cotton for him and that he agreed to do so. Rogers further testified that Walker told him that the gin at Mound Bayou would run on the following Saturday, and that he went to that place on that date, December 3rd; that Walker had ginned that day cotton both on his truck and on the trailer which the three men had loaded with Nott Wheeler’s cotton; and that Walker carried a sample to K. D. Smith, a cotton buyer, sold it to him, and gave him, Rogers, $44 and some cents each for himself, for [543]*543W. T. McCoy, and for Sammy McNeil. Richard Jones testified that he ginned two bales of cotton, each of the weight of 460 pounds for Walker at Mound Bayou on Saturday, December 3rd.

For the defendant, K. D. Smith testified that he bought two bales of cotton from Walker, paying him with checks, each in the sum of $136.90. It was shown that, on December 5th, Walker paid his account in the amount of $36 to Stephen Lass, who received one of the K. D. Smith checks, and paid to Walker the balance of $100.90 in cash; and that on the same day, Walker, with the other check from Smith, paid an account in the sum of $29.73 to Fred Wilson, who in turn gave him the balance in cash. Several other witnesses testified to this effect: That Walker left his mother’s place on. December 2nd with cotton in his truck, went by Ollie Adams’ place, hooked onto a trailer with about one thousand pounds of cotton in it, and then went to the gin at Mound Bayou. Will Hubbard rode with Walker at the time. All of these witnesses said that all of this cotton was picked and was not snapped.

Loraine Walker, wife of the defendant, denied that anyone waked her husband on the night in question. She said that no cotton, snapped or otherwise, was put in the trailer. She further said that the cotton was not ginned on the day her husband carried it to Mound Bayou, but that he left the trailer, came back home in his truck, and went back the next day. Several witnesses testified that the general reputation of the defendant, as a law-abiding citizen in the community in which he lived, was good.

In his motion for a new trail, the defendant there contended, as he does here, that the verdict was contrary to the evidence and arose from passion, ill will and prejudice against the defendant, who is a Negro.

The three witnesses, who admitted that they stole the cotton and trailer, and by whom the State made out [544]*544its case, were Negroes. Although. Willie Rogers was cross-examined at length by defense counsel, he adhered firmly to his story and did not vacillate at all. The effect of the brief cross-examination of Sammy McNeil was emphasis rather than discredit of his testimony. The witness W. T. McCoy was not cross-examined at all. In other words, these three witnesses testified positively and without equivocation that they delivered this cotton to the defendant, at his house, between twelve and one o’clock on the night in question. The evidence of the two white witnesses merely established that the trailer and cotton had been feloniously taken, and that the tires of the trailer had been recovered and identified.

But the appellant says that, since K. D. Smith bought two bales of cotton from the defendant and paid him with checks, and these checks were not negotiated until the following Monday, the evidence of Willie Rogers that the defendant gave him the money for himself and the other two men is wholly unreasonable and incredible. However, neither the defendant nor any witness for him testified in denial that the defendant actually paid over money to Rogers. It is not wholly unreasonable that the defendant had money on his person and was able to make payment for the cotton in cash without the use of the checks. The denial by the Avife that the defendant received the cotton, and the other evidence in his behalf to the effect that the cotton, which was ginned, came from other sources, were not sufficient to overwhelm the positive and unimpeached statements of the three above-named witnesses for the State.

The defendant was given the cautionary instruction that the uncorroborated testimony of an alleged accomplice should “be viewed with great caution and suspicion”, and should not he improbable or self-contradictory on its face. Dedeaux v. State, 125 Miss. 326, 87 So. 664; Wellborn v. State, 140 Miss. 640, 105 So. 769; State v. Jennings, (Miss.) 50 So. 2d 352; Nichols [545]*545v. State, 174 Miss. 271, 164 So. 20; Cole v. State, 217 Miss. 779, 65 So. 2d 262; Pegram v. State, (Miss.) 78 So. 2d 153.

But, after so considering such, testimony, of course if it is reasonable, and not improbable or self-contradictory or substantially impeached, it alone may be sufficient to sustain a conviction. Day v. State, (Miss.) 7 So. 326; Wrigbt v. State, 130 Miss. 603, 94 So. 716; Hunter v. State, 137 Miss. 276, 102 So. 282; Abele v. State, 138 Miss. 772, 103 So. 370; White v. State, 146 Miss. 815, 112 So. 27; Matthews v. State, 148 Miss. 696, 114 So. 816; Boutwell v. State, 165 Miss. 16, 143 So. 479; Harmon v. State, 167 Miss. 527, 142 So. 473; Rutledge v. State, 171 Miss. 311, 157 So. 907; Nichols v. State, 174 Miss. 271, 164 So. 20; Carter v. State, (Miss.) 166 So. 377; Creed v. State, 179 Miss. 700, 176 So. 596; Cole v. State, 217 Miss. 779, 65 So. 2d 262; Pegram v. State, (Miss.) 89 So. 2d 846. Here there were three accomplices rather than one. Manifestly there is no substantial basis on which it may be said that the verdict was contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence.

On this motion, the defendant called a witness and asked him about press reports concerning the trial of a Negro minister in Montgomery, Alabama, arising out of a bus boycott, the expulsion of a Negro woman from the University of Alabama, the passage of an interposition resolution by the Legislature of the State of Mississippi, the issuance of a manifesto by congressmen, protesting against a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the school cases, the existence of Citizens Councils in the State of Mississippi, and reports emanating from Mound Bayou in this State.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
91 So. 2d 548, 229 Miss. 540, 1956 Miss. LEXIS 638, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/walker-v-state-miss-1956.