Case Name: Gary McCLENDON v. STATE of Mississippi
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1976-07-27
Citations: 335 So. 2d 887
Docket Number: No. 49011
Parties: Gary McCLENDON v. STATE of Mississippi.
Judges: Before PATTERSON, SMITH and BROOM, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 335
Pages: 887–892

Head Matter:
Gary McCLENDON v. STATE of Mississippi.
No. 49011.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
July 27, 1976.
Don H. Evans, Jackson, for appellant.
A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen., by Catherine Walker, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
Before PATTERSON, SMITH and BROOM, JJ.

Opinion:
BROOM, Justice,
for the Court:
Burglary was the offense for which appellant, Gary McClendon, was tried and convicted in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County, Mississippi. He appeals from a judgment requiring him to serve seven years imprisonment. We affirm.
Howard Brothers Pharmacy, located on Interstate 55 North in Jackson, Mississippi, was burglarized shortly before midnight on October 1,1974. C. B. Floyd, a Jackson city patrolman, went to investigate after a burglary alarm went off, and upon arrival saw one subject (Jack Robinson) sitting in a car. He saw another subject, later identified as appellant, run from the building to the car and place something in the car. Robinson, the driver of the car, apparently observed Officer Floyd and hurriedly drove away, leaving appellant at the scene. Within a short time Floyd pursued and arrested Robinson after which he promptly returned to the area behind the pharmacy building where appellant (attempting to climb a fence) was arrested. Floyd heard appellant say: "Don't shoot. I did it." Appellant wore no shoes and mud was on his arms. A pair of shoes was found in the parking lot, and also found were a crowbar and certain pharmaceutical supplies.
While several assignments of error were made and argued, only one merits discussion. The record shows that without objection trial began and ended on November 20, 1974. After two law officers testified for the state, appellant, by ore tenus motion, requested a recess
until 9:00 o'clock A.M., November 21, 1974, or until such time as Jack Robinson could be brought back to Hinds County to testify in this trial, .
The ore tenus motion was made (dictated into the record) during the trial and was made without any subpoena or any process whatever having been issued or requested for the witness Robinson (driver of the car into which Officer Floyd saw appellant place something). Appellant's counsel said he discovered during the noon recess that Robinson, who had been convicted for burglary regarding the same incident, had been taken to the penitentiary at Parchman. Robinson and appellant were both represented by the same counsel, who attributed his failure to subpoena the witness to ". . . the large number of cases which he had scheduled for trial." The motion under discussion did not clearly specify how long a recess or continuance was desired. It did not say that he desired a recess for merely a few hours or until another day certain, but vaguely specified "until such time as Jack Robinson could be brought back" to testify.
In our jurisprudence the trial court has broad discretion in the granting or refusing of a continuance or delay. In such cases, this Court will not disturb the holding of the trial court unless we can say from the facts shown in the trial that the trial court abused its discretion or that injustice has been done. Jackson v. State, 254 So.2d 876 (Miss.1971). Here there was no abuse of discretion on the part of the trial judge who denied appellant's application for time, whether called a recess or delay or continuance. It cannot be said that an injustice has been done.
A similar situation was presented to this Court in Douglas v. State, 212 Miss. 176, 54 So.2d 254 (1951). During Douglas' trial he had failed to subpoena certain witnesses whose presence he desired and asked for by motion ore tenus during the course of the trial. Counsel for Douglas orally stated into the record: "The defendant requests of the court a sufficient time within which to procure the attendance of witnesses, as aforesaid." The request for time to procure the presence of witnesses was overruled and on appeal this Court affirmed the conviction, stating: "There was no formal motion for a continuance or postponement, as required by Section 1520, Code of 1942." That section appears in the 1972 Code as § 99-15-29. As noted in Douglas, when the appellant here made his decision to ask for time to have Robinson present and testify, he should have filed a formal motion under what is now Code § 99-15-29, which statute requires an affidavit setting forth, among other things, that he has "used due diligence to procure . . . the presence of the absent witness . . . stating in what such diligence consists, and that the continuance is not sought for delay only, but that justice may be done." Appellant's ore tenus motion in the present case is in all practical aspects identical to that made in Douglas. It does not conform to the statute in that it is unsworn, has no affidavit included or attached, and fails to say that due diligence had been used to procure witness Robinson's presence, and fails to state that the continuance was not sought for delay only, but that justice may be done.
As noted in Black's Law Dictionary 1250 (4th ed. 1951), "pleading was anciently carried on ore tenus, at the bar of the court." Exigencies which arise during the course of present day court trials are often rightly met with such pleadings, but the substance and content of such pleadings required by a statute cannot be ignored. Here, had the ore tenus motion (not conforming with the statutory requirements) been upheld, appellant would have been allowed to accomplish with such a deficient informal pleading what this Court has repeatedly held could not be done except by a written sworn motion.
A similar situation was before the Court in Gatlin v. State, 219 Miss. 167, 68 So.2d 291 (1953), where the defendant moved that the case be passed "for two or three days." Ruling that his motion was defective, this Court stated the "request to pass the case did not meet the requirements of Section 1520." Gatlin further held that the granting or denial of a continuance is largely in the discretion of the trial court. Douglas and Gatlin require affirmance of this case unless we overrule them.
No charge has been made or evidence presented that the removal of the witness Robinson from the jail to Parchman resulted from trickery, deceit or improper motive on the part of the state, or that his removal was contrary to any statute. Appellant's counsel (who also represented Robinson) knew better than anyone else whether Robinson's presence was necessary. Therefore, due diligence required at least a request for process upon Robinson especially where, as here, the record does not show that his removal was contrary to any established policy of the trial court, local practice, or long usage regarding the removal of convicts to the penitentiary.
The record shows that when brought back, while testifying on direct examination at the hearing of appellant's motion for a new trial, Robinson testified that the appellant was unknown to him and was not with him when Howard Brothers Pharmacy was burglarized. Yet on cross-examination of Robinson, the following question was put to him: "You're not telling the Court that Gary McClendon didn't burglarize Howard Brothers Pharmacy, are you?" His answer was in the negative. At another place he indicated, in the language of the circuit judge, that he was without knowledge "that Gary McClendon broke into that drug store' . . . ." Also noteworthy is the fact that after making his skimpy unsworn motion ore tenus for time to procure Robinson's presence, when the state put on its proof and rested, the appellant failed to renew his motion for additional time and rested without putting on any proof whatsoever.
Our view is that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to grant appellant time in this case and it is not shown that any injustice has resulted. The jury accepted the version of the state as true and convicted the appellant, and since no reversible error was made, the case must be affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
GILLESPIE, C. J., PATTERSON, P. J., and ROBERTSON and SUGG, JJ., concur.
INZER, P. J., and WALKER, SMITH and LEE, JJ., dissent.