Hampton v. State

Citations

• 88 Miss. 257
• 40 So. 545

Syllabus

<p>Crijiinai Law. Argument of counsel. Abuse.</p> <p>It is reversible error for a district attorney, in prosecuting a mulatto for murder, to be allowed to make a statement in his argument to the jury affirming a material fact not based upon or warranted by the evidence, followed by the further statements that “not a negro in that great concourse of negroes who threaten to be respectable has dared to come here and testify in behalf of this mulatto” (pointing to defendant), that “in any other state of the Union defendant would be hanged: without benefit of clergy;” that “mulattoes should be kicked' out by the white race and spurned by the negroes;” and that “they, mulattoes, are accursed by every white man who loves his race and despised by every negro who respects his.”</p>