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107 Miss. 568

Howell v. State

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided March 15, 1914

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1914-03-15

How. J. J. Ballenger, Judge. Frank Howell was convicted of robbery and appeals. The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court. The attorney-general dwells at length on the competency of the proposed jurors, Kennedy and Eubanks. In reply to his argument, we cite and rely on, in support of our contention that said proposed jurors were incompetent, regardless of section 2685 of the Code of 1906; Klycev.

Relies on Cook v. State · Schwartz v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1914-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently February 2018

7 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Reed, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2Appellant was convicted on the charge of robbing his; grandfather. The verdict of guilty is sustained by the evidence.

¶3It is contended that the trial court erred in overruling appellant’s challenge of two jurors, for cause. It is ar*573:gued that the jurors challenged had fixed opinions as to the guilt or innocence of appellant which would require •evidence to remove, and that they were therefore incompetent.

¶4The testimony of the juror Kennedy, when he was examined on his voir dire, shows that, while it might take evidence to remove the opinion he had, he could go into the jury box and try the case fairly and impartially according to the law and the evidence, that what he had heard on the outside would not affect him in deciding the case, and that he could try it just as if he had never heard of the case at all. We quote the following question and answer from his testimony: “Q. Is that a fixed opinion that you have? A. No, sir.”

¶5The juror Eubanks on his voir dire testified that the opinion he had would not interfere with his trying the case fairly and impartially on the law and evidence, and he would not be influenced by what he had heard on the ■outside. Continuing, Mr. Eubanks in his testimony said: “What I heard on the outside I did not take to be facts.”

¶6The court was entirely correct in holding that these .jurors were competent. We do not think that their testimony shows that they had a fixed opinion which would disqualify them. What they referred to as an opinion, it appears from the testimony, was a mere impression. It is certainly shown that they were impartial in the case, and did not desire to reach any result except that to which the evidence would conduct them. They are not shown to have any bias or feeling of prejudice in the case. Cook v. State, 90 Miss. 137, 43 So. 618; Schwartz v. State, 103 Miss. 711, 60 So. 732.

¶7Affirmed.

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