Judge Mauldin’s Reasons Stated in Order in Case of J. Elmore Jeffers

(Special to The Record)

CAMDEN, S. C., March 26. – Judge Thomas J. Mauldin has issued an order, dated March 20, granting a new trailo to J. Elmore Jeffers, a farmer residing in west Wateree section, who was convicted at the October, 1928, term of court for this county and sentenced to serve three years for the killing of Peter Kirkland in an election brawl at Blaney. In issuing this order, Judge Mauldin says in part:

“The defendant in the case was tried at the October, 1928, term of the court on a bill of indictment charging him with the murder of one Peter Kirkland, was convicted of manslaughter with a recommendation to the mercy of the court, and thereupon sentenced by the presiding Judge, Hon. J. Henry Johnson, to a term of three years imprisonment.

“The case now comes before me on a motion for a new trial upon the ground of after-discovered evidence based upon the entire record in the case, but more specifically upon the ground that a member of the jury, namely, B. T. Davis, and the deceased married second cousins of the whole blood.

“The record discloses that upon the call of the case for trial the presiding judge, in response to the suggestion of the solicitor and assistant counsel that the jurors be sworn on their voir dire as to relationship, submitted an inquiry of all the jurors as to whether any were related by blood or marriage to the deceased or the defendant, in reply to which the juror in question made no response. He was thereafter sworn as a trail juror and participated in the finding of the verdict against the defendant.

“Mr. Justice Blease, in a separate concurring opinion in the case of Bishop against Nicholson, filed June 13, 1928, well says: As a firm believer in trial by jury. I know if this great right is to be preserved, the jury box must not only be kept pure but that each individual juror ought to be above the least suspicion.

“In a number of decisions beginning with the case of the state against McQuaige, supra, up to this utterance of Mr. Justice Blease, it has been the constant and determined effort of our court to throw every safeguard possible around this great right of trial by jury and to hold it as pure and free from suspicion as human foresight and precaution could make it. lf there is no impropriety in the service of this juror and his participation in the conviction of this defendant, then there could be no impropriety in the constitution of a whole panel of jurors similarly situated with regard to the deceased, and the principle would be unaffected if such a juror had inflicted the death penalty instead of finding a verdict of manslaughter with a recommendation to the mercy of the court. To hold that such a trial would be in accord with the sacred and inviolable safeguards of constitutional rights under our system of government, designed for no higher and more vital interests than securing to a citizen the right of trial by a fair and impartial jury when charged with crime of any kind, and especially a capital felony, would be a reproach upon the orderly and safe administration of justice.

“After a thorough consideration of the record submitted and in the exercise of what I conceive to be a sound judicial discretion in the disposition of this notion, it is ordered and adjudged that the verdict and the sentence and judgment heretofore pronounced thereon and against the defendant, be and the same is hereby vacated and set aside and a new trial of the said cause be and the same is hereby ordered and granted to the defendant.”

The first trial resulted in the jury being hopelessly tied up and a mistrial was ordered. The second trial resulted in a conviction. Solicitor Spigner was assisted in this case by E. D. Blakeney, of Camden, while the defendant was represented by M. L. Smith, of Camden, and Claude N. Sapp, of Columbia.