Brown v. State

• Decision Date: 14 February 1910
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ADALINE BROWN v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

51 So. 273

96 Miss. 534

ADALINE BROWN v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 14, 1910

March 1910

FROM the circuit court of Pike county, HON. MOYSE H. WILKINSON Judge.

Lady Brown, appellant, was indicted and tried for and convicted of the unlawful sale of intoxicating liquors and appealed to the supreme court. The facts upon which the decision turned are stated in the opinion of the court.

Reversed and remanded.

Clem V Ratcliff, for appellant.

In Code 1906, § 1923, it is provided that a witness may be examined touching his interest in the cause or his conviction of any crime. Of any crime, means what it says. If it meant that the witness might be examined as to one conviction only it would have said so. One reason for the provisions of this statute is, that to show interest or conviction of a witness testifying, goes to his credibility. If it goes to his credibility to show one conviction, to show several or more than one, affects his credibility still more. If the section and the construction of it, should hold, or mean, that a party is limited to showing only one conviction to affect the credibility of the witness, that would be tantamount to holding that one conviction shown is sufficient to disqualify a witness altogether to testify. But the law says a litigant may show convictions of any crimes. Then if a party may show one conviction, he may show a dozen, if he can, and thus discredit the witness in proportion to the jury's confidence in him as a confirmed criminal. This is the meaning and effect of the statute; the intent and purpose of it. In this case appellant was denied the right to show more than one conviction. Under the late decision of this court in the case of Turner v. State, 95 Miss. 879, 50 So. 629, this was held to be reversible error. Defendant has not had a fair and impartial trial and her material rights have been denied her.

George Butler, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.

While Code 1906, § 1923, authorizes a witness to be questioned touching his conviction of crime, the trial courts are not thereby precluded from excluding matters which are too remote, or from sustaining objections where the same matter has already been proved, over and over again. All things earthly must end somewhere, and the trial court was not without support in reason for its rulings in this case. The statute exhausts itself sometime and is not warrant for a...