Case Name: Lea SPEARS v. STATE of Mississippi
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1970-11-09
Citations: 241 So. 2d 148
Docket Number: No. 45961
Parties: Lea SPEARS v. STATE of Mississippi.
Judges: ETHRIDGE, C. J., and RODGERS, JONES, BRADY, INZER and SMITH, JJ-, concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 241
Pages: 148–151

Head Matter:
Lea SPEARS v. STATE of Mississippi.
No. 45961.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
Nov. 9, 1970.
Roland C. Lewis, Jackson, W. M. Con-erly, Vicksburg, for appellant.
A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Velia Ann Mayer, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Opinion:
PATTERSON, Justice:
Mississippi Constitution, Article 3, Bill of Rights, section 26 (1890) provides in part as follows:
In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have a right to be heard by himself or counsel, or both, to demand the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted by the witnesses against him> to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and, in all prosecutions by indictment or information, a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the county where the offense was committed; (Emphasis added.)
The appellant was tried and convicted of the crime of abortion in the Circuit Court of Warren County. One of the essentials of the crime is pregnancy.
During the course of the trial two doctors introduced as witnesses for the State were permitted to testify that the State's prosecuting witness was pregnant. One of the doctors stated that his opinion of pregnancy was based solely upon the laboratory report of his technician; that he had not examined the State witness. The other doctor also testified from a laboratory report made by a laboratory technician though he had on one occasion, in an emergency situation subsequent to the alleged abortion, personally examined the State witness.
The laboratory technicians were not offered as witnesses. The doctors' testimony, though sworn, was merely a reiteration of that which had been related to them by unsworn witnesses. This was hearsay evidence [Dennis v. Prisock, 221 So.2d 706 (Miss.1969); Hill v. Stewart, 209 So.2d 809 (Miss.1968); City of Laurel v. Upton, 253 Miss. 380, 175 So.2d 621 (1965); and Wild v. Bass, 252 Miss. 615, 173 So.2d 647 (1965)] which denied the defendant the basic and fundamental right to be confronted by the witnesses against her as well as the right of cross-examination. This was error of major proportion, requiring the case to be reversed and prompting the statement that it is more the duty of the State's prosecutor to safeguard the constitutional rights of a defendant than to seek conviction without them.
We find no merit in the other assignments of error.
Reversed and remanded.
ETHRIDGE, C. J., and RODGERS, JONES, BRADY, INZER and SMITH, JJ-, concur.
ROBERTSON, J., and GILLESPIE, P. J., dissent.