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65 Miss. 147

Ex parte Hamilton

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided October 15, 1887

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1887-10-15

E. Gr. Peyton, chancellor of the ninth judicial district, on habeas corpus. At about 10 o’clock on the night of the 5th of May, 1887, many persons residing near by, or being in the vicinity by chance, were attracted to the iron bridge over “ town creek ” on ■Capital Street, in tile citjr of Jackson, by a startling discharge of fire-arms.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1887-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently May 1976

4 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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Campbell, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court.

¶2The record is very voluminous, and contains much incompetent evidence. The task we have attempted to accomplish is to eliminate from the case all incompetent evidence, and looking alone to that which is competent to decide the question: Were the prisoners entitled to be bailed on the legal evidence before the chancellor ?

¶3Any discussion of the rules of law applicable to bail is idle, because not a single question is open in this State; all have been settled by former adjudications, and are familiar learning, and any difference of opinion among lawyers now must be not as to aw, but the facts of a case.

¶4We forbear to comment on the facts further than to say that they have failed to convince us that any person besides *153Hamilton participated in the killing of Gambrell, and they have convinced us that Hamilton, acting on provocation insufficient in law, but such as has often incited to deeds of violence, saw his opportunity to confront his adversary alone, and got out of his wagon and killed him.

¶5We reject alike the theory of the prosecution (as to the participation of several in the killing), and of the defence (as to an attack having been made on Hamilton in his carriage), and believe the above mentioned view to be a just inference from the established facts. From which it results that Eubanks should have been bailed or discharged, and that bail was properly denied to Hamilton. Wherefore the judgment as to Eubanks is reversed and vacated, and as to Hamilton it is affirmed.

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