Case Name: Burl Thomas ROUSE v. STATE of Mississippi
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1969-02-17
Citations: 222 So. 2d 145
Docket Number: No. 45059
Parties: Burl Thomas ROUSE v. STATE of Mississippi.
Judges: ETHRIDGE, C. J., and INZER, SMITH and ROBERTSON, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 222
Pages: 145–153

Head Matter:
Burl Thomas ROUSE v. STATE of Mississippi.
No. 45059.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
Feb. 17, 1969.
Rehearing Denied May 12, 1969.
H. Bernard Gautier, Pascagoula, for appellant.
Joe T. Patterson, Atty. Gen., by Guy N. Rogers, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Laurence Y. Mellen, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Opinion:
ROBERTSON, Justice:
The appellant, Burl Thomas Rouse, was indicted, tried, and convicted of the July 11, 1967, murder of his 14-year-old stepdaughter, Kathleen Simmons, in the Circuit Court of Jackson County. Inasmuch as the jury found the defendant guilty as charged, he was sentenced to death.
Since the questions raised in Wither-spoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (June 3, 1968), were raised by the appellant both in his assignment of errors and in his brief in support thereof, we directed the trial court to hold an evidentiary hearing and determine all issues of fact made pertinent by Wither-spoon. The record of this hearing was filed in this Court on December 30, 1968, along with the order of the court finding that three jurors were excused for cause because they had conscientious scruples against the imposition of the death penalty.
About 5 p. m., July 11, 1967, 14-year-old Kathleen Simmons was found in the den of the home of her stepfather, Burl Rouse, with two penetrating stab wounds, one in her chest and one in her back, which wounds were made by a butcher knife. She had bled profusely but was still conscious and begging for help. Her mother, Margaret Simmons Rouse, was lying across the bed in the bedroom, dead from multiple stab wounds. Burl Rouse was lying on the floor of the living room with both wrists slashed and a cigarette still burning in his hand at the time police arrived. The murder weapon, a butcher knife, was found stuck in a chest of drawers located in the living room near the door to the dining room. Blood was everywhere: on the floors, on some walls and doors, and even in some chairs.
The appellant's principal assignments of error were:
(1) Adverse newspaper publicity influenced the grand jury in indicting appellant and affected the appellant's ability to get a fair trial.
(2) The defendant was deprived of a fairly representative jury because the method of selection caused a grossly disproportionate number of names from rural Districts 1 and 5 to be included on the special venire and regular venire.
(3) The trial court erred in allowing Dr. Wigham to testify as to statements made to him by Kathleen Simmons, since they were not dying declarations.
(4) The State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the appellant was sane.
(5) The trial court erred in allowing the State to challenge for cause jurors who expressed conscientious scruples against imposing the death penalty.
The adverse newspaper articles complained of were published for the most part in July and August 1967. The appellant was first indicted at the October 1967 term of court; but these two indictments, one Jor the murder of his stepdaughter and one for the murder of his wife, were quashed by the court on January 9, 1968.
Appellant was again indicted at the January 1968 term of court. On January 11, the date set for trial, appellant again moved: to quash the indictment, for a change of venue, and to quash the special and regular venires.
After six witnesses had testified that the appellant could get a fair and impartial trial in Jackson County, the court overruled: the motion to quash the indictment, the motion to quash the special and regular venires, and the motion for a change of venue.
In overruling these motions, the court said:
"In my opinion there was relative ease in acquiring this jury, there was only one person of the special venire who definitely said he had definitely made up his mind as to the facts involving this case. All of the men expressed the opinion when questioned, I might say, exhaustively by defense counsel concerning the opinions, that they did not have fixed opinions, their minds were not made up, that they would listen to the evidence, and in my opinion the motions which have heretofore been filed, should he ruled on accordingly. "
We think the trial court's rulings were correct and supported by the evidence.
Appellant contends that the special and regular venires included a grossly disproportionate number of names from rural Districts 1 and 5 of the county, and thereby defendant was deprived of a fairly representative jury.
The circuit clerk testified that the names of all qualified and registered voters in each supervisor's district were placed in the box for that district, that names were then drawn in rotation from each of the five boxes. A venire of SO jurors would be composed of 10 names from each box. Appellant in his brief admits, "The method appears to be basically in accord with the statutory provisions. § 1762, 1762-01, 1762-02, 1762-03, 1766, and 1772 Miss. Code 1942 Ann. (Supp.1966)."
We reason out this matter and reach the same conclusions as did this Court in Lott v. State, 204 Miss. 610, 37 So.2d 782 (1948):
"Under the facts in this case we find nothing to cause us to feel that the jury in the court was not fair and impartial. The laws respecting the listing, drawing, summoning and impaneling juries are directory and unless there is a radical departure from the statutory scheme of selecting and impaneling the jury this Court will not reverse. We do not feel there has been such a departure here and' the lower court was correct in overruling the motion to quash." Id. at 625, 37 So.2d at 786.
In answering the contention of the appellant that the statements of Kathleen Simmons to Dr. Wigham were not dying declarations because she was not in imminent fear of death, we would only say, as did the trial judge, that taking into consideration the age of Kathleen Simmons, the pain she had suffered, the severity of her wounds (two penetrating wounds, one of which went completely through her little body), the fact that she was in shock, and was internally bleeding to death, she undoubtedly was in imminent fear of death, and her statements were dying declarations. We note that she died while undergoing surgery, about two hours and fifteen minutes after admission to the hospital. Dr. Wigham testified that her liver was extensively cut and her wounds fatal from the outset.
We said in Fulton v. State, 209 Miss. 565, 47 So.2d 883 (1950):
"It is well settled that the sense of impending death which a dying person must have had in order to render a dying declaration made by him admissible in evidence may be inferred from the nature of the wound or the state of his illness, without any express declaration to show that he was sensible of impending death. " Id. at 569, 47 So.2d at 885. (Emphasis added).
The traditional practice is to leave these questions to the sound discretion of the trial judge. We certainly cannot say that the trial judge abused his discretion in admitting the testimony of Dr. Wigham as to statements made by Kathleen Simmons approximately an hour before her death.
The next contention of the appellant is that the State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was sane. Suffice it to say that this question was properly submitted to the jury on disputed facts.
After six weeks of examinations at Whitfield, it was the unanimous decision of the staff (sixteen doctors) of the Mississippi State Hospital that Burl Rouse was sane and a responsible individual.
Dr. James E. Stary, chief of the Psychologist Service, and Dr. Glen Anderson, staff psychiatrist, two doctors on the staff of the State Hospital who personally examined and treated appellant, testified that Rouse was sane and knew the difference between right and wrong. Dr. Frederick J. Minkler, Jr., who sutured appellant's cut writs and who had had special training in psychology, testified that Rouse was sane and knew the difference between right and wrong.
The jury was amply justified in finding appellant sane and responsible for his acts.
We find that the verdict of the jury, "guilty as charged," is supported by the overwhelming weight of the testimony and that the judgment as to guilt should be affirmed.
The trial judge reported to this Court:
"In compliance with the decision of the Mississippi Supreme Court dated the 3rd day of October, 1968, this court has held a hearing in compliance with said decision and is of the opinion and doth find that certain jurors were excused because they stated to the Court on voir dire examination that they had conscientious scruples against the infliction of the death penalty. Said jurors were Ot-man R. Mallette, Frank L. Maples, and Robert E. Heinrich.
"The undersigned judge was the presiding judge at the trial of the herein named defendant and did excuse the above named jurors for cause and for the reason stated by them that they had conscientious scruples against the infliction of the death penalty. In the judgment of this court this does bring said case within the Witherspoon decision."
We reverse the order of the trial court sentencing the appellant to death and remand for a new trial as to punishment only. Witherspoon v. Illinois, supra; Yates v. Breazeale, Supt. of Miss. State Penitentiary, 402 F.2d 113 (5th Cir.1968); and Irving v. Breazeale, Supt. of Miss. State Penitentiary, 400 F.2d 231 (5th Cir. 1968).
There is an alternative open to the court which would obviate the impaneling of a new jury to pass upon the punishment to be imposed. If the district attorney and the trial judge agree, then the trial judge could sentence the appellant to life imprisonment without the intervention of a jury.
In Bullock v. Harpole, Supt. State Penitentiary, 233 Miss. 486, 102 So.2d 687 (1958), this Court had this to say about the trial court's following such a procedure:
"Wharton says that 'The plea of guilty has the same effect in respect to the subsequent proceedings thereon against the accused as a verdict of guilty; and if it is unqualified he may be sentenced to any degree of punishment imposed by law for the offense alleged in the indictment.' Wharton's Criminal Law and Procedure, Vol. 4, p. 769, par. 1901.
"The general rule governing the right of the court to pronounce sentence after the accused has entered a plea of guilty, is stated in 24 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 1563a, p. 23, as follows:
" 'In the absence of a contrary statute, where accused enters a plea of guilty or of nolo contendere, it is the right and duty of the court to pronounce sentence as on a verdict, and ordinarily no evidence or independent adjudication of guilt is required; but as a condition for pronouncing sentence the court should know the facts on which the plea is based, and be satisfied that it was properly entered.' In some jurisdictions the statutes expressly require that, on a plea of guilty, in certain offenses, the court shall empanel a jury to determine the degree of the offense of which the accused is guilty. 24 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 1563b (2), page 27; and cases cited. We have no such statute.
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"Neither of the statutes mentioned above, however, expressly requires that a jury be empaneled on a plea of guilty for the purpose of fixing the punishment at life imprisonment, if the trial judge sees fit to accept the plea of guilty with the understanding that the milder sentence shall be imposed. A jury in this case could have fixed no lighter punishment than that which the court imposed. The appellant could have gained nothing by having the court go through the formality of empaneling a jury for the purpose of obtaining the jury's approval of the sentence of life imprisonment, and no prejudice resulted from the failure of the trial judge to empanel a jury to fix the punishment. We think 'that no constitutional right of the appellant was violated when the court pronounced the sentence without empaneling a jury to fix the punishment." Id. at 493-495, 102 So.2d at 689-690. (Emphasis added).
We express no opinion as to which of the two procedures outlined above should be followed in this case; the decision is up to the district attorney and the trial judge. We only point out the alternatives open to the trial court.
Affirmed as to guilt, but reversed and remanded for a new trial as to punishment only.
All Justices concur.