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MORRIS v. STATE2/8/1971
e ones involved in the robbery, Patterson testified that he said: "What store? I don't know nothing about a store." In other parts of his testimony Patterson stated that he did tell Officer Mitchell about the threat that the occupants had killed one S. B. and one more wouldn't make any difference.
As a result of Patterson's statements and the descriptions given by Sergeant Frames, Officer Mitchell placed Patterson and all the Occupants of the car under arrest. The men and the car were searched at the scene by Officer Mitchell. A grocery sack containing some change was found on the back seat. Back at the station a policewoman searched Peggy (Tate) Smith and found $59.00 in paper money between her underclothes and her body. According to the cash register tapes approximately $177.00 was taken in the robbery.
Appellant contends that the record shows that Negroes and poor people were systematically excluded from the jury. We do not agree. The record shows that of the panels from which the jurors who tried appellant were selected, 25% of the regular panel and 39% of the alternate panel were Negroes. The income of the jurors
who tried appellant ranged from $3,600 to $12,300 per year. Other figures in the record and attached to the record show that there were 33,303 inhabitants in St. Francis County according to the 1960 census and that about the time of the trial there were as many as 6,287 people on welfare. According to the 1960 census 56.7% of the population were Negroes. A deputy clerk estimated that 46% of the qualified electorate were Negroes. While the proportion of Negroes to other races on the jury can be so disproportionately small as to cast the burden on the State to show that no discrimination was involved, we do not find the record here to be so out of line as to shift the burden to the State. This is particularly so when we consider that a jury must be picked so as not to discriminate against, not only race, but also religion, social status and employment. Finally jurors must be selected who can comprehend the ordinary vocabulary used in the court room and who are able to retain, organize and make a logical deduction from the evidence heard in the court room. Otherwise verdicts would become illogical and based more on sentiment or persuasiveness of counsel than the facts. A number of people remain on the lower end of the economic scale because of their inability to separate facts from their sentiments, then to correlate them and to make a logical deduction therefrom.
Appellant alleges that his arrest was without probable cause and thus the trial court should have granted his motion to suppress the evidence obtained in the search of Patterson's car, the search of Peggy (Tate) Smith and State's Exhibit No. 1, a picture taken of appellant on October 8, 1969. We agree with the trial court that Officer Mitchell had probable cause to arrest appellant.
It is also argued that the trial court erred in denying appellant's motion to pay his attorney's fees, in refusing to permit his attorney to withdraw as his counsel and in refusing appellant's motion to discharge John T. Lavey as his counsel. The record here shows that before the robbery appellant had been arrested and charged with spitting on the sidewalk at the local sheriff. His present counsel, John T. Lavey, was apparently furnished to him in that proceeding by a
"Committee for Peaceful Coexistence" headed up by a Reverend Cooley. Patterson testified that after they were placed in jail a person named Goodloe, a law student working in Lavey's office, talked to them about letting a member of Lavey's firm represent them and that was agreed to. The record further shows that when appellant filed his m
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