Opinion ID: 1683171
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: overruling motion for mistrial on account of argument to jury by counsel for appellee

Text: The appellant contends that the court committed reversible error in its refusal to grant him a mistrial because of alleged prejudicial argument by counsel for appellee in the closing address to the jury. The record discloses the statements and the actions thereon as follows: SULLIVAN: `If they put that white boy out on the highway, how in the world did they know that Aaron Henry was going to come by? I don't know. How in the world did they know a Pontiac was going to come down that highway being driven by Aaron Henry? Yet Aaron Henry himself said `I picked him up on the highway.' (LOUD MURMUR IN COURTROOM.) SEMMES LUCKETT: Your Honor, I will ask that the courtroom be cleared. COURT: Mr. Sheriff, I am not going to have that kind of thing going on in this courtroom. Is there a motion to clear the courtroom? CHARLES SULLIVAN: No, sir, not as long as it doesn't reoccur. COURT: I want to announce that no person shall open their mouth again, regardless of who they are. This is the first time a thing like this has happened in the 23 years that I have been on the bench. Mr. Sheriff, stand out there and if a single person bats an eyelash I want them brought up here. Proceed with your argument, Mr. Sullivan. (The record does not show that any objection whatever was made by counsel for appellant to the language which had been used or to what had occurred at that time.) SULLIVAN: `Do you know what punitive damages are, and compensatory damages, for that matter? They are a by-product of our civilization. There was a period in man's history when if someone had said what Aaron Henry said about Ben Collins, there would have been a homicide that night  somebody would have gotten killed. There was a time in Mississippi when that would have happened. If Aaron Henry had accused this man of being a dirty crook, there was a time when there would have been a killing that night. JACK H. YOUNG: We object, your Honor. COURT: I sustain the objection. CHARLES L. SULLIVAN: I think that is a proper statement, your Honor. JACK H. YOUNG: I would like to make a motion, your Honor, for a mistrial. COURT: I overrule the motion for a mistrial, but let the record show that I am instructing the jury to disregard that statement. Continue with your argument. The speaker then resumed his argument, and, from the context, it is clear that he was undertaking to explain the difference between punitive, and compensatory, damages. He asserted that punitive damages are a by-product of our civilization, saying that There was a period in man's history when if someone had said what Aaron Henry said about Ben Collins, there would have been a homicide that night  somebody would have gotten killed. There was a time in Mississippi when that would have happened. If Aaron Henry had accused this man of being a dirty crook, there was a time when there would have been a killing that night. This reference was evidently to the pioneer days of the country when a man, who felt that his honor had been questioned, arrogated to himself the right to be his own avenger. Dueling was commonly practiced, not only in this state, but in other parts of this country. A noteworthy instance is the well-known duel between Burr and Hamilton. In an effort to suppress this evil, the Legislature of the state enacted the so-called Dueling Statute, Sec. 1059, Code of 1942, Rec., making All words which, from their usual construction and common acceptation, are considered as insults, and calculated to lead to a breach of the peace    actionable. Huckabee v. Nash, 182 Miss. 754, 183 So. 500; Salvo v. Edens, 237 Miss. 734, 116 So.2d 220; as heretofore stated. (Hn 9) Since the first statement of counsel was not objected to at all during the trial and was first raised in appellant's brief in this Court, the objection is without merit. In Robertshaw Trustees v. Columbus & G. Ry. Co., 185 Miss. 717, 188 So. 308, it was said: In order to put the trial court in error, it must be shown not only that there was error but that the error or errors were committed by the court after a fair and definitely presented opportunity was given to avoid or correct them. See also Stevenson v. Robinson, 37 So.2d 568 (Miss.); Lyle v. Johnson, 240 Miss. 154, 126 So.2d 266. (Hn 10) The basis of the rule against argumentative appeals to racial prejudice, in its full extent, is stated in Hampton v. State, 88 Miss. 257, 40 So. 545, as follows: Malattoes, negroes, Malays, whites, millionaires, paupers, princes, and kings, in the courts of Mississippi, are on precisely the same exactly equal footing. All must be tried on facts, and not on abuse. Only impartial trials can pass the Red Sea of this court without drowning. Trials are to vindicate innocence or ascertain guilt, and are not to be vehicles for denunciation. And in Harris v. State, 96 Miss. 379, 50 So. 626, it was said: Every defendant at the bar of his country, white or black, must be accorded a fair trial according to the law of the land, and that law knows no color. In the first instance, the sale of liquor was charged. Objection to the prejudicial argument went unrebuked by the court, and exceptions were properly taken. In the second instance, the defendant, a Negro, was being tried on the charge of assault, with intent to murder a white man. Counsel protested and objected five times about the prejudicial remarks, but the same were ignored by the trial judge. Insofar as his contention on the second statement is concerned, the appellant relies on seven cases from this jurisdiction, namely, Hardaway v. State, 99 Miss. 223, 54 So. 833; Moseley v. State, 112 Miss. 854, 73 So. 791; Garner v. State, 120 Miss. 744, 83 So. 83; Walton v. State, 147 Miss. 17, 112 So. 601; Roby v. State, 147 Miss. 575, 113 So. 185; Harris v. State, 209 Miss. 141, 46 So.2d 91; Reed v. State, 99 So.2d 455 (Miss.) A study of these cases shows that, in every instance, except one, the defendants were Negroes and the State witnesses were Whites. In the Garner case, supra, although the victim of the rape was a young Negro girl, the exhortation to the jury by the prosecuting attorney was that they should not turn loose a brute of the defendant's race on the community. Besides, in each instance there was an express appeal to racial prejudice, and the veracity of the witnesses, both Negroes and Whites, was expressly pitted against each other. In each case there were objections to the pungent arguments and appeals to prejudice by the prosecuting attorneys. In every case the trial judges either overruled the objections or declined or failed to rule on them at all. They did not disapprove or condemn such arguments nor did they admonish or direct the juries to disregard the same. Thus the judges did not, in any way, seek to effect the erasure of such prejudicial matters from the minds of the jurors. (Hn 11) Manifestly the cases, which the appellant has cited, are not indicative of what the court should hold in the present case. In this case, when the objection was made, the trial judge promptly sustained it. When counsel then moved for a mistrial, the court overruled it but directed that the record should show that I am instructing the jury to disregard the speaker's statement. In the absence of the exact words which the judge used for that purpose, it must be assumed that they fully covered the matter. This Court has recognized that, when an objection is made to arguments and the same is sustained by the court, usually the ill effect of the statement, if any, is corrected. In the case of Herrin v. State, 201 Miss. 595, 29 So.2d 452, a manslaughter case, the district attorney, in his closing remarks to the jury, said: `Gentlemen of the jury you can acquit the defendant on this charge and let him go free, and if you do he may kill another person, and the next time it may not be a colored person,' to which the defendant `duly objected, and which objection the court duly sustained.' The court, in dealing with this objection, said that we are of the opinion that while the remarks of the district attorney constituted an appeal to race prejudice, and should not have been made, the action of the trial court in promptly sustaining an objection thereto was sufficient to prevent his overruling of the motion for a mistrial from constituting a reversible error, under all the facts and circumstances of this case. See also Pitts v. State, 211 Miss. 268, 51 So.2d 448, an appeal from a life sentence; Thomas v. State, 200 Miss. 220, 26 So.2d 469, a manslaughter case; Moon v. State, 176 Miss. 72, 168 So. 476, a death sentence; Bufkin v. State, 134 Miss. 116, 98 So. 455; Cavanah v. The State, 56 Miss. 299. In the Pitts case, supra, dealing with the five statements in the bill of exceptions as improper but not sufficient to cause a reversal, the Court said: After each of the statements, the court sustained objections to it. The cumulative effect on a jury of the trial judge's sustaining a devendant's objection to argument and ofter admonishing the state's attorney to stay within the evidence usually has the effect of curing the improper conduct and prejudicing the state's rather than the defendant's case. In the Thomas case, supra, in overruling the claim of prejudice from the alleged injection of the racial issue into the case, the Court said: The record shows that when the irregularities occurred the court not only sustained the objections made to them, but in each case the court expressly admonished the jury to disregard the matter of which the complaints were made; and this direct admonition to the jury by the court was sufficient to cure the improper conduct. All of the cases show that the evil inveighed against in prejudicial argument of this kind is the appeal to racial prejudice and the arrayal of White against Negro. (Hn 12) The statement here under review cannot be held either to intend, or to produce, that result. In the explanation of punitive damages, counsel was merely saying that people in this state and country do not settle alleged reflections on their honor as they did in the old days. On the contrary the law recognizes the existence of injuries on that account, and provides for retribution in a lawful way by the award of damages without resort to six-guns or violence. Such was the purpose of the Anti-Dueling Statute. Whether this fact of history is known to the great masses of the people or not, at least the change in the method of settling such affairs is now known because the original practice has been greatly mitigated. Jurors in the county where this trial occurred are required to be men of good intelligence, sound judgment and fair character. There would be no difference between saying if the defendant had done this to the plaintiff and in saying if Aaron Henry had done this act to Ben Collins. There simply was no appeal to racial prejudice. (Hn 13) The trial judge, out of an abundance of caution, sustained the objection and instructed the jury to disregard the statement of counsel. If it could, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, be said that any harm had resulted, manifestly such harm must have been eradicated from the minds of the jurors. There is this added fact in connection with this assignment. The appellant made no claim in his motion for a new trial that he should be awarded this relief because of error in the refusal to grant a mistrial based on prejudicial argument to the jury by counsel for appellee. (Hn 14) The trial court had no opportunity whatever to review, following the completed trial, his action in that particular matter. This Court has repeatedly held that, unless the point is preserved in the motion for a new trial, the contention that the verdict is contrary to the great weight of the evidence cannot be reviewed here. Youngblood v. State, 216 Miss. 202, 62 So.2d 218, and authorities there cited. Prejudicial evidence and prejudicial arguments are so closely akin that they should be treated in the same manner. There is no reason why the same rule should not be applicable to both. If one is to profit from the failure of the court to overrule a motion for a mistrial because of prejudicial argument, such point should be preserved by including it in the motion for a new trial. Inasmuch as it had not been heard of until its assignment in this Court, it must therefore be viewed as an afterthought. Consequently there was no error on the part of the court in this respect.