State v. Webb
| Decision Date | 02 February 1925 |
| Docket Number | 26940 |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. WEBB |
Appeal from Fourth Judicial District Court, Parish of Union; S. L Digby, Judge.
Abner Webb was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals.
Affirmed.
Elder & Everett and H. E. Dawkins, all of Farmerville, for appellant.
Percy Saint, Atty. Gen., H. G. Fields, Dist. Atty., of Farmerville and Percy T. Ogden, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Bernard Cocke, of New Orleans, of counsel), for the State.
Defendant was indicted for the crime of murder. He was tried and found guilty without capital punishment, and duly sentenced. Because the court below erred in admitting certain objectionable testimony, this court, on appeal, set the verdict and sentence aside and remanded the case. See State v. Webb, 156 La. 952, 101 So. 338.
On his second trial under said indictment defendant was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced accordingly, and again has appealed to this court.
The record contains six bills of exception, five reserved during the progress of the trial, and the sixth reserved to the refusal of a motion for a new trial.
Counsel for defendant have not argued bills Nos. 1, 4, and 6. However, we have examined these bills, and, finding them to be without merit, will not make further reference thereto.
Bill No. 2 was taken to the refusal of the court to sustain the challenge for cause of a tales juror named J. S. Copeland, because the name as drawn from the jury box, and as set forth on the list submitted to counsel for defense and prosecution, appeared as J. S. Copen. The juror was excused upon a peremptory challenge by the defense.
From an examination of the talesman on his voir dire it appears that he was the person intended to be summoned, and that he was actually summoned as J. S. Copeland; that he was the only person of that name living in the ward whence he was summoned, and that his name was frequently misspelled, There was no evidence adduced showing the existence of any person named J. S. Copen.
The ruling of the court was correct. It does not appear that defendant was in any wise misled by the misspelling of the name of the talesman, and it is not claimed that defendant did not know the party summoned as well by the name as written as he would have known him if it had been correctly set forth.
Bill No. 3 shows that the wife of the deceased, testifying as a witness for the prosecution, identified a certain knife as the property of the defendant. On cross-examination she was asked if she did not hear the defendant state at the former trial of the case that this was his knife, and that he had loaned it to her husband, just before the difficulty came up, at her husband's request. Upon objection by counsel for the state, the witness was not permitted to answer, and the testimony was excluded, on the ground that it was hearsay of a self-serving statement. This ruling of the court was the basis of the bill.
Counsel for defendant contend that the question was proper, and that they were entitled to an answer, to show, not only the feeling of the witness, but, in addition thereto, her sources of information.
It is not clear to us how the feeling of the witness could have been shown by any answer she might have made to the interrogatory, and it was irrelevant for that purpose. Nor was the method adopted the proper one to ascertain how the witness obtained the information that the knife in question was the property of the defendant. If counsel for defendant desired to be informed in that regard, he should have propounded the direct question to the witness. Besides, the true facts could have been ascertained by placing the...
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