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.