Wheeler v. State

63 So. 2d 517, 219 Miss. 129, 24 Adv. S. 49, 1953 Miss. LEXIS 377
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 16, 1953
Docket38615
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 63 So. 2d 517 (Wheeler 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
Wheeler v. State, 63 So. 2d 517, 219 Miss. 129, 24 Adv. S. 49, 1953 Miss. LEXIS 377 (Mich. 1953).

Opinions

Lee, J.

The grand jury of Forrest County, at the April 1952 term of court, returned an indictment against Luther Carlyle Wheeler and Elaine Forman, jointly, for the murder of Jessie James Everett. After a severance had been granted, the State elected to try Wheeler first, with the result that the jury, which heard the case, returned a verdict of guilty as charged. The judgment ordered Wheeler’s death by electrocution, and he appeals.

The State developed the following facts and circumstances, in sequence to-wit: Ace Weathers operated an automobile agency at 1502 North Main Street in the City of Hattiesburg. On Sunday evening, March 9,1952, about 7:30, he went to his place of business for the purpose of turning on the lights in the showroom. He discovered that the place had been burglarized, and called the police department. A few minutes later, policemen Everett and Vinson arrived in answer to his call. Everett went to the rear of the building. Weathers and Vinson went on the inside, where they heard a noise as if someone was in the storeroom. Both hurried back to the front. Weathers last noticed Vinson in the police car, and also observed a 1941 model maroon Buick, being driven by a heavy-set woman, turn the corner and go down Red Street, toward the Hercules Powder Company plant. The police car also traveled the same street, in the general direction of West Fourth Grocery, about ten blocks or three-fourths of a mile distant.

[135]*135Mrs. L. P. Rush, in a black Cadillac, was traveling down Fourth Street toward Main. As she turned into North Street, her attention was attracted by two cars. A police car with the red light flashing on and off was following an old car. She knew that a pick-up was about to be made. Both cars stopped. No other car was thereabout. Suddenly she heard sounds like firecrackers, and the old car then started off at terrific speed, turned to the right, and disappeared. Mrs. Rush then drove around the block to the intersection of Fourth and North Streets, where she saw a policeman lying near the grocery store, and another lying on the other side.

Mrs. Iva Hamm, who lived on North Street, heard the first shot, ran to the porch, saw two cars, one on each side of the street, and immediately called the police department. When she came back to the porch, the police car was still at the same place, but the other was gone.

Mr. and Mrs. M. G. Merk, in their Mercury, which looked green at night, were driving on North Street and headed toward Fourth Street. At a corner, they observed Mrs. L. P. Rush’s Cadillac momentarily stopped. They swung around it, and saw a police car opposite the side of the Fourth Street Grocery. It was parked on the left side of the street, headed south, the right front door was open, and the blinker light was working. They saw a policeman lying on the opposite side of the street. They parked their car about twelve feet from policeman Everett, who was still alive and gasping for breath, and Merk started to walk toward him. At that time, Mrs. Mooney and her daughter came out of the house, hollering, and Merk got back in his car and drove down Fourth Street several houses to find a telephone so that he could call the police department. This being done, he and his wife returned to the scene. Everett was still breathing and four or five persons were then present.

The proof showed that Everett, in uniform, had been shot one time in the breast and was lying on his back, [136]*136with his feet in the street and his body on the neutral ground. A loaded 38-caliber pistol was between his arm and body. The windows of the car were up, but there were no bullet holes in them. The motor was dead, but the lights were on. Policeman Vinson’s body was on the left side of the car, his feet being within two or three feet of the open door.

Bill Anderson was at home, at 411 Dixie Avenue, about 7:30, when he saw a 1941 maroon Buick, driven by a heavy-set woman, traveling at terrific speed, run into a ditch in front of his house. The speed was so great that it also ran out of the ditch. Anderson was an automobile parts man and was positive in his description of the car.

All of the foregoing events occurred between 7:30 and 8 o’clock that evening.

Later policemen Jones, White and Andrews were on patrol duty, when they received over their radio from headquarters a report that someone had attempted to steal Emmett McKinney’s automobile at his home on 507 North Nineteenth Avenue, and that McKinney was forced into his house at pistol point. These policemen knew McKinney £0 be a reputable citizen, and proceeded immediately to his home. The radio report was confirmed, and McKinney described the culprit as being a man five feet seven or eight inches tall, wearing a water repellant jacket with a fur collar, khaki pants, and a brown felt hat. They radioed this description to the other officers, and a car, in which policemen Maddox, Sullivan and Creel were patrolling, acknowledged receipt of the description. Shortly afterwards, these three policemen were patrolling on Hardy Street when they observed a man, walking toward town, who fitted the identical description of the man who had attempted to steal McKinney’s automobile. They hailed him, put him under arrest, and as a result of the search incident thereto, took from his person a 38-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol and a considerable number of cartridges from both pockets. Thereupon Maddox [137]*137asked the man, later to be identified as Luther Carlyle Wheeler, why he shot those policemen, and his reply was, “Because the G. . d. . . sons of b.....s shot at me.”

The bullet from the body of policeman Everett, together with the pistol which was taken from Wheeler, were forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation at Washington, D. C., and one of its firearms experts testified that the bullet was fired from the pistol.

Several days after the killing, a 1941 maroon Buick car, without a tag, but with two tags lying nearby, was found in an abandoned condition, on a log road, several miles from Hattiesburg. From the car and a radio therein were lifted several fingerprints. Prints of Wheeler were taken after his arrest. All of these prints were forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and an expert from that office identified the fingerprints from the car and radio as those of Wheeler and Elaine Forman.

Wheeler testified for himself that he was from Jacksonville, Florida, and is a typewriter mechanic. He and Elaine Forman arrived at Hattiesburg about two o ’clock that afternoon. They ate and went to a movie. They then ate again and went out in their 1941 maroon Buick, with no particular business in mind, though he was looking for a boarding house. His version was that, as he and Elaine Forman were driving at about twenty miles an hour, he heard a siren, then a shot, and saw two cars behind him. He immediately stopped. The officers got out of their car and went to the other car. There was some talk between them about tools. The officers then brought the two men over to his car. One of the officers first opened the car door and then the trunk, and told him to get out. He explained that he had done nothing. As he got out, one of the officers hit him on the "head and knocked him to the ground. They then told him to leave, but he was in a dazed condition, and could not do so. About that time, shooting started. He tried to get under his car, but Elaine Forman became scared and drove off. [138]*138When the shooting was over, someone in the other ear, which was green, threw a bag at him.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
63 So. 2d 517, 219 Miss. 129, 24 Adv. S. 49, 1953 Miss. LEXIS 377, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wheeler-v-state-miss-1953.