Julian P. Alexander

This case concerns a workers' compensation claim for a hernia allegedly resulting from a workplace fall on November 29, 1950. The claimant experienced symptoms of the hernia 22 days later, and his physician could not confirm a causal connection between the fall and the hernia. Mississippi's Workmen’s Compensation Law (Chapter 412, Laws of 1950, Sec. 6(f)) imposes strict requirements for such claims, including that the hernia descent must immediately follow the injury with immediate severe pain noticed and reported. The attorney referee and Commission denied the claim for lack of proof by a preponderance of the evidence on causal connection, the circuit court reversed to award benefits, and the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the circuit court to reinstate the denial.

labor & employmentprocedure

The case involved a post-conviction petition for stay of execution filed on behalf of a defendant sentenced to death for murder, based on a claim that he had become insane after the judgment. The trial court found the petitioner insane but limited any stay of execution to a supersedeas pending appeal. The Mississippi Supreme Court accepted the undisputed medical evidence establishing the petitioner's schizophrenia and catatonic condition, which left him unaware of his situation and unable to respond to stimuli. Drawing on longstanding common-law authorities from Blackstone and Coke, as well as Mississippi Code Section 2558, the court held that execution of an insane person is prohibited and therefore reversed the limitation on the stay, directing that execution be suspended until the petitioner regains sanity.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved the conviction of appellant Knight for manslaughter after he fatally shot L.B. Carter inside a cafe owned by Monroe Breland. Knight claimed self-defense, testifying that Carter had made threats, advanced aggressively into the kitchen area, and appeared armed, though no weapon was found on or near the body. The court affirmed the manslaughter verdict, holding that the jury could reasonably conclude the shooting was not justified based on the lack of a weapon, the immediate circumstances of the encounter, and other testimony, while rejecting claims of error in the admission of evidence or refusal of certain defense instructions as either irrelevant or improperly argumentative.

criminal law

This case involved a workers' compensation claim by an employee at Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp. who suffered partial paralysis after using a vibrating electric chisel in a confined space, which activated a preexisting congenital angiomatous condition in his back. The attorney-referee, Commission, and circuit court found the injury compensable under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the compensation award, reasoning that the cumulative trauma from the tool's recoil and vibration against a metal strongback constituted an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of employment, even though it affected a dormant physical abnormality. However, the court disallowed recovery for medical and hospital expenses because the employee failed to request such services from the employer as required by statute.

labor & employment

This case involved a defendant indicted for murder after an unlawful abortion procedure caused the death of the pregnant woman, though a prior ruling limited the charge to manslaughter, resulting in a guilty verdict on that lesser offense. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, addressing challenges to jury instructions, the admission of the defendant's statements to law enforcement, and the use of medical charts. The court held that the instructions correctly tracked the manslaughter statute and adequately informed the jury on the required findings and burden of proof. It also ruled the statements voluntary and admissible, and found the charts properly qualified and non-prejudicial as explanatory aids for the pathologist's testimony on the cause of death by air embolism. The evidence was sufficient to support the verdict.

criminal lawabortionprocedure

This case involved a dispute over reforming a deed conveying land in Warren County, Mississippi, where the buyers (appellants) claimed a mutual understanding that a timber reservation should last only three years rather than the ten years stated in the deed, along with related issues over mineral interests. The chancellor dismissed the bill for reformation, finding that the deed had been prepared with the ten-year term, read to the buyers before they executed related documents, accepted by them after recording without protest, and followed by payment of the consideration. The court affirmed, holding that prior negotiations merged into the accepted contract and that there was no mutual mistake proven by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. It noted the seller's concession to adjust the mineral reservation but found the chancellor's findings on that point also supported affirmance.

property