Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

38

attending "the deliberations of the grand jury" and with prosecuting all criminal cases for the State in the circuit court. The county attorney must "represent the State" before the grand jury and prosecute criminal cases in county and justice of the peace courts.3

39

40

Neither district nor county attorneys investigate the cases they present to the grand jury. They are not authorized to have any legal or investigative staff, nor do they generally receive funds for investigation, for office expenses, or for secretarial assistance. As a result, both prosecuting attorneys tend to rely heavily on the sheriff's investigative services. As one prosecuting official described it:

[The district and county attorneys] usually don't keep a
lot of files in Mississippi; they depend on the sheriff.
They don't get a lot of voluminous reports and records;
they have no facilities. The district attorneys have no
investigators and must rely on the sheriff to furnish them
any evidence they have."1

Southwestern Mississippi

In Adams and surrounding counties arrests were made in only two cases of racial violence. In one, involving the shooting on April 5, 1964, of Richard Joe Butler, a Negro, four men were arrested after being identified by the victim. According to the prosecutor, the case was not presented to the grand jury because he judged the evidence to be insufficient.12

The second case involved an assault on Bruce Payne, a white civil rights worker who was a student at Yale College. Payne testified that on October 31, 1963, he and two companions left Natchez for Port Gibson, a town 40 miles away in Claiborne County.

38 Miss. Code §§ 3920-21 (1956).

39

Miss. Code §§ 3915-16 (1956). Not every county, however, has a county attorney, and in such situations, his duties are performed by the district attorney. Testimony of Earl T. Thomas, president of the Mississippi Bar Association, T. 305.

40

Miss. Code § 3920.5 (Supp. 1964) (district attorney); Miss. Code § 3916.5 (Supp. 1964) (county attorney).

41 Testimony of Joseph Davenport, Jr., T.E. 169.

12 Adams County Report, T. 465.

They were followed by a police car and two other cars containing four white men. The police car turned off at the city limits, but the other cars continued. When Payne stopped at a gas station in Port Gibson, he was attacked and beaten by the men who had followed him. He reported the incident to the police chiefs of Port Gibson and Natchez and gave them the license numbers of the cars used by his assailants.13

A few days later Payne and a companion were forced off the road just north of Adams County and shot at by one of the same men. He reported this incident, with identifying information, to the sheriff of Adams County and other officials. He was not contacted again by any law enforcement officers.**

45

State officials took no action for a year. In the interim, Payne was interviewed several times by FBI agents and identified his assailants from photographs. This information was given to the State Highway Patrol which, in turn, made it available to the Claiborne county attorney. In October 1964, when the county attorney received this information, he secured the arrest of four men who were then charged with the beating of Payne and were held for the Claiborne County grand jury.

46

Reliance on the sheriff for preparation of the Payne case resulted in a failure to prosecute. When the grand jury convened in January 1965, the case was not presented because Payne, the chief complaining witness, had not been asked to appear. During its hearing the Commission subpenaed both the district attorney and the county attorney who were responsible for this case. Both admitted that they made no effort to advise Payne of the proceedings or to request his attendance." Joseph Davenport, the county attorney, testified that he reminded the sheriff of the case a few weeks before the grand jury met and

43 T. 70-71.

44 T. 71-72.

On both occasions Payne left his address and telephone number with the officials. Ibid.

45 T. 72.

16 Testimony of Joseph Davenport, Jr., T. 77–78.

47 Testimony of Joseph Davenport, Jr., T. 78-79; testimony of T. J. Lawrence, T.

85-86.

requested him to notify the law enforcement officers who had been involved, as well as Bruce Payne “if he knew where he was. "48 The sheriff told Davenport that he had notified the officers but had not notified Payne, because local FBI agents "told him they did not know" of his whereabouts. Although Davenport agreed that Payne "should have been there," he testified that he took no further steps to secure his presence."

District Attorney T. J. Lawrence had the primary responsibility for presenting this case to the grand jury. He testified that in cases of violence he and the county attorney usually interviewed the witnesses and advised them of grand jury proceedings. When the grand jury convened, he requested the foreman of the jury to issue the necessary subpenas which were then served by the sheriff. He did not regard this procedure as a duty, but as a "little extra good measure . . . to get the facts to present to the Fatal Twelve." 50

Lawrence admitted that he did not give this "extra measure" in the Payne case. He did not interview Payne or other witnesses before the grand jury convened. Furthermore, when the witnesses failed to appear, he made no effort to secure their attendance for the next session of the grand jury because, as he said, "I didn't know who to contact.' Lawrence's reliance on the sheriff was so complete that he named that officer as responsible for presenting grand jury cases:

51

Commissioner GRISWOLD. Who is responsible for the presentation of cases to the grand jury in Claiborne County?

Mr. LAWRENCE. I would say the sheriff.52

During his testimony at the Commission's hearing, Lawrence publicly invited Payne and his companion, George Green, to ap

48 T. 78-79.

49 Ibid.

50 T. 83.

51 T. 84. 52 T. 82.

pear at the next session of the grand jury.53 Payne subsequently received a subpena and testified before the grand jury on May 17, 1965. No indictment was returned.5

Forrest County

54

55

On July 10, 1964, Rabbi Arthur J. Lelyveld, from Cleveland, Ohio, was walking along a street in Hattiesburg in Forrest County, Mississippi, accompanied by two white civil rights workers and two Negro girls. He was assaulted and seriously injured by three white men who struck him repeatedly with an iron bar. Two of his assailants subsequently surrendered to Hattiesburg police and were released on $2,500 bond on charges of assault with intent to maim. Rabbi Lelyveld received a subpena in Cleveland and appeared before a Forrest County grand jury on August 7, 1964. In an affidavit furnished to the Commission, Lelyveld stated that he was questioned by District Attorney James Finch before the grand jury and identified his assailants from photographs. His examination by Finch was confined almost entirely to these questions: why he had come to Hattiesburg; whether it was true that the white boys had been embracing the Negro girls before the attack took place; where he had slept during his visit to Hattiesburg; and whether Negroes were sleeping there as well.56

When the grand jury failed to indict those identified by Lelyveld, the district attorney filed an information charging them with simple assault-a misdemeanor. They pleaded no contest to these charges, were fined $500 and given 90 days hard labor, which was suspended.57

53 T. 81.

54 Telephone interview with Bruce Payne, May 18, 1965; FBI Appropriation 1966, 84 (FBI reprint, 1965).

55

56

Affidavit of Arthur J. Lelyveld, August 10, 1965.

Ibid. According to his affidavit, Lelyveld told the grand jury that he had come to Hattiesburg for the National Council of Churches to participate in the Hattiesburg Ministers' Project. He denied that white boys had embraced Negro girls before the attack and stated that he had stayed at the headquarters of the Ministers' Project and slept beside a Negro colleague, the Reverend Dr. Donald Jacobs of Cleveland. In a letter to the Commission, dated Sept. 1, 1965, District Attorney James Finch stated, with respect to these allegations: "The State's Attorneys are not allowed, under the laws of Mississippi, to exert any influence upon the grand jury in their deliberations." Letter from James Finch, supra.

57

Leflore County

58

In addition to the Pike County cases discussed in the previous chapter, there were only two other cases of racial violence in Mississippi in recent years in which a State grand jury returned an indictment against a white man. The first was the indictment of Byron de la Beckwith for the murder of NAACP leader Medgar Evers in Jackson on June 12, 1963. The murder and the subsequent prosecution attracted national attention, but after two trials had resulted in hung juries, the State dropped the case and Beckwith was released.5

59

Less public attention was given to the shooting of James Travis, a Negro civil rights worker, on February 28, 1963. Travis was struck in the neck by a burst from a submachine gun and seriously wounded as he and two companions were driving on a highway outside the city of Greenwood. Twelve bullets penetrated the

[blocks in formation]

60

When the FBI began its investigations a local white man voluntarily surrendered to the sheriff, confessed, and implicated a companion. The FBI investigation disclosed that spent bullets found inside his car were fired from the same weapon that fired the bullet recovered from Travis' neck.62

A few weeks later a local grand jury indicted both men for felonious assault. The case was first scheduled for trial in May 1963, but prior to the trial date, defendants moved for a continuance to the next term of court, six months later. The State did not object.63 The judge granted the continuance because "no person could... have obtained a fair and impartial trial in that court at that time, because of the community and the manner in which it was upset."

[blocks in formation]

>> 64

59 N.Y. Times, Nov. 15, 1964.

GO Testimony of George Everett, T. 274, 276.

61 T.E. 125.

6 T. 276. He was also seen in the car three hours before the shooting. T. 278.

62

63 T. 274.

Testimony of Judge Arthur B. Clark, T.E. 116–17.

« AnteriorContinuar »