Case Name: Fannie BUCKHALTER v. STATE of Mississippi
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1985-11-13
Citations: 480 So. 2d 1128
Docket Number: No. 54919
Parties: Fannie BUCKHALTER v. STATE of Mississippi.
Judges: PATTERSON, C.J., ROY NOBLE LEE, P.J., and HAWKINS and ANDERSON, JJ. concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 480
Pages: 1128–1130

Head Matter:
Fannie BUCKHALTER v. STATE of Mississippi.
No. 54919.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
Nov. 13, 1985.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 15, 1986.
Kenneth Crawford, Jr., Crawford & Crawford, Collins, Andy K. Hughes, Ma-gee, for appellant.
Edwin Lloyd Pittman, Atty. Gen. by Frankie Walton White, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Opinion:
WALKER, Presiding Justice,
for the Court:
Fannie Buckhalter was indicted for murder but convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to ten (10) years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections in the Circuit Court of Covington County. She appeals assigning, inter alia, the following errors:
THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN NOT DECLARING A MISTRIAL WHEN STATE'S WITNESS BOBBY BLACKWELL TESTIFIED AS TO STATEMENTS MADE BY APPELLANT BUT NOT REVEALED BY THE STATE TO DEFENSE COUNSEL PRIOR TO TRIAL PURSUANT TO AN ORDER OF THE TRIAL COURT UNDER RULE 4.06 OF THE UNIFORM CRIMINAL RULES OF CIRCUIT COURT PRACTICE.
On October 7, 1912 this Court adopted and promulgated the Revised Rules of the Supreme Court of Mississippi which included our present Rule 11 and provides:
No judgment shall be reversed on the ground of misdirection to the jury, or the improper admission or exclusion of evidence, or for error as to the matter of pleading or procedure, unless it shall affirmatively appear, from the whole record, that such judgment has resulted in a miscarriage of justice.
The reasoning behind the rule had been applied by this Court for many years after rejecting the Exchequer Rule which produced illogical and absurd results.
The administration of justice is a practical thing. It should be administered in a practical way, so as, while not denying to any defendant any substantial right to which he is entitled by the law of the land, to protect society from violators of the law, and to secure the punishment of guilty persons properly convicted.
With these principles in mind, we look to the record which reveals there was absolutely no prejudice in the failure of the state to advise counsel that his client, Fannie Buckhalter, had made an oral statement to the deputy sheriff, who was investigating the case. The statement was that when he met Fannie walking along the road after the fatal killing he asked her what was going on and she replied, "He's dead, I killed him, he's dead."
The district attorney failed to produce the statement of Buckhalter for inspection and use by the defendant and her counsel who now contend that the trial court erred by admitting the statement into evidence. However, the record reveals that Buckhal-ter's defense was self-defense which by its nature constitutes an admission that she killed the deceased but was justified in doing so. When considered in this context, Fannie's statement to the deputy sheriff that she killed the deceased was not an admission of guilt or inconsistent with her plea of self-defense in any way whatsoever. Nor did the circumstances surrounding the statement indicate that she was fleeing or conducting herself in a manner inconsistent with her defense.
It is the opinion of some members of the Court that we should reverse the case simply because the order of discovery was not fully complied with. Enlightened courts abandoned the Exchequer Rule many years ago in favor of the policy and logic found in Rule 11.
We have carefully considered this assignment of error and are of the opinion, after considering the whole record as required by Rule 11, that the judgment has not resulted in a miscarriage of justice.
The remaining assignments of error are without merit and warrant no discussion.
Therefore, the judgment and sentence of the circuit court are affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
PATTERSON, C.J., ROY NOBLE LEE, P.J., and HAWKINS and ANDERSON, JJ. concur.
PRATHER, DAN M. LEE, ROBERTSON and SULLIVAN, JJ., dissent.
. "The Exchequer rule, used in England for about a generation from 1830, signified that an error in a ruling on evidence created per se for the objecting and defeated party a right to a new trial. 1 Wigmore on Evidence § 21 (3d ed. 1940). The Exchequer rule was carried over into some courts in this country, but this jurisdiction has long since rejected it in favor of the harmless error doctrine stated in our Rule 11." Buckley v. State, 223 So.2d 524, 530 (Miss.1969), Chief Justice Ethridge dissenting. See Revised Rules of the Supreme Court of Mississippi, 103 Miss. 903, 906 (1912). See Discussion in 1 Wig-more, Evidence § 21 (Tillers Rev. 1983); Dorsey v. State, 276 Md. 638, 350 A.2d 665, (1976); See also Love v. State, 457 P.2d 622, (Alaska 1969); Wadsworth v. State, 201 So.2d 836, quashed 210 So.2d 4 (Fla.App.1967); People v. Ross, 67 Cal.2d 64, 60 Cal.Rptr., 254, 429 P.2d 606, Reversed, 391 U.S. 470, 88 S.Ct. 1850, 20 L.Ed.2d 750 (1967); Meszaros v. Gransamer, 23 N.J. 179, 128 A.2d 449 (1957); State v. Weil, 91 N.E.2d 277, (Ohio 1950); O'Steen v. State, 92 Fla. 1062, 111 So. 725 (1926).
. See Dissent by Justice Whitfield in Lipscomb v. State, 75 Miss. 559, 23 So. 210, 228 (1898).