Convicting the Innocent: Errors of Criminal Justice (1932)
by Edwin M. Borchard
Case #27

John Murchison

ALABAMA

On Friday morning, August 6, 1920, as he left his home near Guntersville, Alabama, John Franklin McClendon, a white man, told his wife that he was going to Guntersville and then to Smith's Lake to open a soft-drink stand and sell its wares at a picnic to be held at Smith's Lake the next day. When he left his companions at Smith's Lake that night about midnight, he told them that he would be there early the next morning, and set off in the direction of his home.

When he did not appear at the stand the next morning, and when nothing was heard of him for three or four days, a search was begun and continued for five or six days. About ten days after his disappearance, a colored boy who lived in the community reported to one of the searchers that he had seen buzzards flying close to the crest of Brindlee Mountain, which was about a quarter of a mile from the McClendon home. A group of searchers went at once to investigate. As they approached a cave near the top of the mountain, they saw the tracks of a rubber-tired buggy leading to the cave and a bent bush over which the buggy had apparently driven. When they came nearer, they called other searchers to them, as the odors emanating from the cave told them their search was at an end. When they entered the cave, they found a body covered by brush and leaves and partially screened from casual gaze by a quilt. The dead man had been shot twice at close range, as the powder burns on the clothing showed. The body was subsequently identified as that of McClendon by the clothing and the teeth.

The boy who had directed the searchers' attention to the mountain later made a statement in which he said that he had told John Murchison, a colored man, what he had seen, and that Murchison had told him to say nothing about it, as it "might get him into trouble." Murchison also came under suspicion because he was known to have a rubber-tired buggy one of whose stirrups was bent back, and he was also known to have played craps with McClendon. He was placed in jail on the charge of murder.

Later two other negroes, Willie Crutcher and Cleo Staten, were placed in jail on the charge of participating in the murder. Their number was increased by the addition of Jim Hudson, G. B. Staten, Alfred Staten, and Ben Nobles, all of them colored. These men were under suspicion because they had been hunting the, night of the murder, supposedly in the vicinity of Brindlee Mountain.

They were all indicted for murder in the first degree by the Grand Jury on October 8, 1920, and were arraigned for trial October 11, 1920. Trial was set for October 19, 1920. By agreement it was decided to try Murchison, Crutcher, Hudson, and Cleo Staten together. The trial was held before the Hon. W. W. Haralson, Judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Alabama. The prosecution was conducted by A.. E. Hawkins, Prosecutor for the Ninth Judicial Circuit; H. G. Bally, County Solicitor for Marshall County; and John A. Lush of Guntersville, special counsel retained by the representatives of the deceased. The defendants were represented by P. W. Shumate and W. M. Rayburn, both of Guntersville.

At the trial Ben Nobles, one of the men indicted for the murder, testified for the state that he had seen John Murchison shoot the deceased in the back. Nobles asserted that about midnight on the night of the murder, he had gone to the schoolhouse grove, in which a game of craps was taking place, that he had there seen Jim Hudson, Willie Crutcher, John Murchison, and Cleo Staten, and that he had seen John Murchison fire the first shot at McClendon, in his back, and Cleo Staten the second. He said that they then wrapped the body in a quilt and took it away. He claimed to have had a clear and unobstructed view of the whole scene.

There was conflicting evidence as to whether or not the quilt in which the body had been wrapped came from the home of Laura Bell Nobles. One witness testified that he knew it was hers because of a certain patch. Yet Ben Nobles, her brother, and the woman who did most of the sewing for the Nobles family did not recognize it.

Nobles and others testified that they had heard Murchison and Willie Crutcher object to the relationship existing between McClendon and Laura Bell Nobles and say that it should be broken up. This may have been considered by the prosecution one of the motives for the murder.

Ben Nobles and the boy who reported the presence of the buzzards testified that Murchison had warned them to say nothing about the birds.

One witness testified that on the night of the murder he had heard shooting on the mountain, two shots perhaps a minute apart. He lived about a half mile from the schoolhouse near which the shooting was supposed to have taken place. Various witnesses testified that they had seen Crutcher and Hudson carrying weapons about the time of the murder.

The defense was based on alibis. All the defendants denied on the stand that they were present at the crap game and that they were in any way connected with the murder.

Various witnesses established the fact that both Murchison and Jim Hudson had gone to a meeting at the schoolhouse, which had broken up between ten and eleven o'clock. Some testified to having accompanied Murchison to his home, and his wife testified that he had not left during the night. Part of the same evidence established the fact that Jim Hudson had spent the night at the home of Nancy Staten, a relative.

The other defendants claimed to have been hunting with horses and dogs on the night of the murder and produced witnesses who had seen or heard them hunting until two or three in the morning. All this evidence, however, pointed to the fact that they had been hunting near Black's Gate, not Brindlee Mountain.

One of the searchers who assisted in removing the body from the cave testified that the clothing found on the body did not show shot holes in the back, but in the front.

The defense offered evidence to show that Ben Nobles, as well as another man who had left the county shortly after the discovery of the body, and others also, had rubber-tired buggies, and that the stirrup on Murchison's buggy had been bent long before the murder took place.

There was some evidence that, after the murder was discovered, a bloodstained mattress was seen at the Nobles home, where both Ben Nobles and Laura Bell Nobles lived. Medical evidence established that the stains were not blood.

It was testified that Laura Bell. Nobles was not married, but had a child.

Upon this evidence, on October 21, 1920, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. The four defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment and immediately began their sentences.

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After he had served about two years of his term, Willie Crutcher was killed by falling rock in the mine where he worked. Jim Hudson died of tuberculosis, after having served three and a half years.

In April, 1926, while Murchison and Cleo Staten were still in prison for the murder of John McClendon, and after Myrtle McClendon, the widow, had remarried, Otis McClendon, a nephew of the dead man, made a confession to his mother. He stated that the wife of the dead man had confided to him her desire to kill her husband, and had promised him, in return for his aid, forty acres of land, a pair of mules, and a home as long as she had one, and that they had shot McClendon as he entered his own home, the wife firing the first shot and he the second. He described how they had wrapped the body in an old quilt from the house and taken it to the cave in McClendon's rubber-tired buggy. He told of injuring the stirrup and attempting to repair it. He claimed that he had no peace of mind, especially as Myrtle McClendon had in no way kept her promise to remain loyal to him but had married another man, Cleve King; and he vowed that he was going to kill her, her husband, and himself. After making this confession, he ran from the house to carry out his vow. He did in fact attempt to do so, firing on Myrtle and her husband in their home, but before he could accomplish his object, he was fatally wounded by a shot fired by the husband. He was found crouching at the foot of a tree, with a pistol, the hammer back, in his hand; it was the theory of the officers that he was about to shoot himself when fired on by King.

When affidavits relating these facts were presented to the Board of Pardons, John Murchison and Cleo Staten were at once released on permanent parole, July 7, 1926. Staten, on March 12, 1927, was granted a full pardon, but unfortunately never received it, for he died just a few days before it was issued. A pardon was denied to Murchison by Gov. Bibbs Graves, though Murchison was admittedly innocent, because of a record of bad conduct in prison. At last accounts, Murchison was working for a Mr. Claybrook of Albertville, Alabama, doing chores about the house. In July, 1931, the Alabama Legislature voted Murchison $750 as compensation for his unjust conviction and imprisonment.

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This tragedy was the result of a combination of circumstantial evidence and rank perjury. Possibly Ben Nobles, whose vivid testimony as to things that never happened, may have been induced by fear, an excited imagination, suggestion, or coaching – he appears to have been arrested, but not indicted – believed what he claimed to have seen. Possibly the fact that all the accused were negroes and that John McClendon appears at times to have associated with negroes, may have directed suspicion easily toward negroes as the authors of the crime. Why the known bad relations existing between McClendon and his wife did not lead to suspicion of the wife is not disclosed. The evidence against the accused, apart from Nobles' testimony, seems so conflicting that it might well have led to a disagreement of the jury. It is not improper to infer that the premature deaths of Crutcher, Hudson, and Staten had a more or less direct relation to their wrongful imprisonment. Alabama made a tangible gesture of contrition and vindication by awarding Murchison $750.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Transcript of the evidence at the trial.

2. Transcript of the pardon file.

3. Acts of Alabama, 1931, p. 556.

4. Acknowledgments: Hon. C. A. Moffett, President of the Alabama State Board of Administration, Montgomery, Ala.; Mr. P. W. Shumate, Guntersville, Ala.; Mr. Douglas Arant, Birmingham, Ala.