Clark v. State
Mississippi Supreme Court · 1950-10-02 · cited 16×
The case involved the conviction of an 18-year-old defendant for manslaughter in the death of an elderly Chinese store owner in Greenville, Mississippi. The victim was found unconscious after suffering a fatal brain injury from blunt force, and the defendant later confessed while in custody that he had thrown a four-to-five-pound sweet potato at the victim's head following a dispute over change. The trial court admitted the confessions after a preliminary hearing on voluntariness, found sufficient independent evidence of the corpus delicti, and rejected claims of jury separation prejudice; the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the two-year sentence, holding that the confessions were properly admitted under the applicable evidentiary standards and that any procedural irregularities did not warrant reversal.