West v. State
West v. State
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
Steven West was convicted in the circuit court of Warren county of the murder of Hinnie Eisher, and sentenced to be hanged. Erom the judgment this appeal is taken. He assigns several errors in the proceedings before the trial court:
2. The court, upon an examination of the jurors on voir dire, placed twelve men in the jury box, and they were accepted by the state, when the defendant was asked whether he would accept the panel or not. His counsel replied that two of the jurors then in the box on their voir dire had disqualified themselves — one by saying that he was not a registered voter, and the other by not having paid his taxes before February 1st. The court said to him: “If you challenge the two jurors for
3. The objection to the instruction that the jury, being unable to fix the punishment at imprisonment for life, should return a verdict of guilty, if from the evidence, beyond all reasonable doubt, they believed him so to be, is frivolous. It is in exact conformity with the statute, which covers the whole law of the case.
Affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Stephen West v. State of Mississippi
- Cited By
- 2 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. Criminal Law. Jurors. Special venire. Jury boxes exhausted. Mode of selecting veniremen. Where the jury boxes are exhausted and a special venire facias is directed to the sheriff commanding him to summon jurors, it is no objection to the venire that the sheriff, acting in good faith, with-the aid of a deputy, selected the names of an equal number of qualified jurors from each supervisor’s district of the county, using the registration and assessment rolls in so doing, and caused the jurors so selected to be summoned. 2. Same. Service of venire. Mode. The jurors being in attendance on the court, the mode of the service of the venire on them is unimportant, and a litigant cannot predicate error of the mode of service on them, or the want of it. 3. Same. Disqualified jurors not objected to. Supreme court practice, Code 1893, l 4370. If a juror on his voir dire disclose facts rendering him disqualified, a defendant who declines to object to him for cause cannot, after verdict, complain of the disqualification, and the case falls on ap-, peal within code 1893, J 4370, prohibiting reversals by the supreme court for errors not made the ground of special exception in the court below. 4. Same. Murder. ' Instruction. Jury unable to agree on punishment. Code 1893, § 1439. If the jury in a murder case agree on defendant’s guilt, but cannot agree on the punishment (under code 1893, g 1439), it should return a general verdict of guilty, and the court may so instruct.