Burr v. State
| Decision Date | 12 October 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 41243,41243 |
| Citation | 114 So.2d 764,237 Miss. 338 |
| Parties | Varna T. BURR v. STATE. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
G. L. Lucas, Columbus, for appellant.
Joe T. Patterson, Atty. Gen., by G. Garland Lyell, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The appellant Varna T. Burr was indicted for the murder of her nine year old son by a former marriage, George Earl Waterford, and was convicted of manslaughter in Lowndes County, and sentenced to serve a term of 18 years in the state penitentiary.
The proof disclosed that the death of the child was due to a beating administered by the appellant due to the fact that this boy came home from school with mud on his shoes and with one of his coat pockets torn. There were no eyewitnesses to the beating of the boy by his mother, and neither did she nor anyone else testify at the trial as to what happened.
Two witnesses for the State, a deputy sheriff and the coroner, established the prosecution's case by their testimony as to an investigation made by them while interrogating the appellant, and from an autopsy performed by two doctors.
The appellant related to these two officers that she was the only one who had whipped the child and that she did it with an elm switch cut in the yard near the fence. She was unable to point out any place from which a switch of any kind had been cut, but the officers finally found an iron or steel poker in the house which was bent near one end in a gooseneck fashion, and which corresponded to some of the whelps on the child's body as disclosed by the autopsy.
The appellant further related that after she whipped the child he had assisted his stepfather in bringing in some stovewood that evening, and that on the next morning he was able to come to breakfast, although he thereafter went back to bed and died two or three hours later while appellant was endeavoring to get someone to take him to a doctor. But according to the testimony of the physicians who made the autopsy, the child's body was beaten into a pulp from his hips down to the back of his knees and that he evidently went into shock immediately after the beating the afternoon before, and from which he never recovered.
As heretofore stated, the defense offered no testimony as to what occurred in connection with the beating of the child, but did offer the testimony of physicians who were of the opinion that no one could commit such a merciless and brutal beating of their own child if they had understood the nature and character of their act when the crime was being committed, since in their opinion it required at least 30 minutes or more to inflict this punishment. A doctor who testified for the prosecution was of the opinion that under all of the facts and circumstances the appellant knew the difference between right and wrong and that she was just angry toward the child or mad with him.
In other words, the defense interposed was that the crime was committed under an uncontrollable impulse and that the mother could not therefore be held accountable for what she had done. However, we find that under the case of Eatman v. State, 169 Miss. 295, 153 So. 381, the defense of irresistible or uncontrollable impulse to commit an offense is unavailable unless such impulse springs from mental illness to such a degree as to overwhelm reason, judgment and conscience. This case followed the cases of Smith v. State, 95 Miss. 786, 49 So. 945, 27 L.R.A.,,N.S., 461, and Singleton v. State, 71 Miss. 782, 16 So. 295, and in the Eatman case this Court said: 'And the defense of want of inhibitory powers, or as otherwise expressed, the defense of irresistible or uncontrollable impulse was declared in that case to be unavailable, unless the uncontrollable impulse spring from a mental disease existing to such a high degree as to overwhelm the reason, judgment, and conscience, in which case, as the court adds, the accused would be unable to distinguish the right and wrong of a matter.' And in the Singleton case the Court said [71 Miss. 782, 16 So. 296]: 'Nothing suggests a doubt of his sanity, unless it is the enormity of his crime; and it would be unsafe to...
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...Eatman v. State, 169 Miss. 295, 299, 153 So. 381, 381 (1934); Smith v. State, 95 Miss. 786, 49 So. 945 (1909); Burr v. State, 237 Miss. 338, 342, 114 So.2d 764, 766 (1959). Based on the requirements of Herron v. State, supra, and the cases cited above, the opinion testimony of at least thre......
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Herron v. State, 47589
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