Cartle v. State

• Decision Date: 15 February 1932
• Docket Number: 29666
• Citation: 139 So. 618,162 Miss. 263
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: CARTLE v. STATE

139 So. 618

162 Miss. 263

CARTLE v. STATE

No. 29666

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 15, 1932

Division B

1. CRIMINAL LAW.

Where testimony in murder case was conflicting, it was important that instructions should be reasonably free from harmful error.

2. CRIMINAL LAW. Rule that anterior events helpful to understanding of main transaction are admissible should be applied liberally in interest of justice, with some discretion in trial judge.

Some discretion must be allowed to trial judge, whose duty it is to see that trials are not taken into distinctly collateral issues or into matters which are substantially immateral or irrelevant.

3 HOMICIDE.

In homicide prosecution against constable, testimony concerning deceased's hostile attitude toward officers previously serving process on deceased held admissible.

4 BAIL.

Statutes authorizing sureties to arrest principal anywhere, or to authorize another to do so, are declaratory of common law (Code 1930, sections 1250, 1251).

5. HOMICIDE. In homicide prosecution against constable, refusal to instruct that it was constable's duty to accept surety's surrender of deceased principal held reversible error (Code 1930, sections 1250, 1251).

Facts disclosed that surety, on being informed that justice of peace contemplated forfeiture of bail bond because of principal's failure to appear, requested constable to accompany him to another district to receive surrender of principal, and that on meeting principal in such other district he formally announced that surety was then surrendering principal and requested constable to accept surrender and arrest principal. Thereupon, in resulting difficulty, constable killed principal. Refusal of requested instruction was reversible error, because state took erroneous position that constable was without any authority to arrest deceased in district other than his own, even at request and by surety's authority, and trial court upheld that theory.

6 HOMICIDE.

Constable who, at surety's request, accompanied surety to another district to accept surrender of principal, had duty and right of arresting principal (Code 1930, sections 1250, 1251).

7. HOMICIDE. In homicide prosecution against constable, refusing instruction that constable was without authority to accept money from deceased in settlement of criminal charge held error.

When surety surrendered principal to constable, constable informed principal that he would have to go with constable before justice of peace and make some new arrangement, whereupon principal defied officer to take him, and then went to railroad station and arranged to borrow money which, as he supposed, would cover fine and costs of pending criminal charge, and which he proposed to tender constable in discharge of his arrest. However, the case had not been tried, and there had been no adjudication of fine, nor any final fixation of costs.

8. CRIMINAL LAW.

Compromise verdicts are invalid.

9. CRIMINAL LAW.

Defendant has right to stand or fall on defense as made and to have jury properly instructed against compromise verdict.

10. CRIMINAL LAW.

Requested instructions against compromise verdict held properly refused because omitting element that conviction which juror entertains must be conviction after consultation and deliberation with other jurors.

HON. J. I. STURDIVANT, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Clay county HON. J. I. STURDIVANT, Judge.

Walter E. Cartee was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded.

McIntyre & McIntyre, and B. H. Loving, all of West Point, for appellant.

The testimony to which the objections were sustained detailed the efforts of the magistrate to get the criminal charge against the deceased settled or to get the warrant of arrest, issued by him served by various officers of the county, prior to its having been sent to appellant, as a constable of the county, the second time. They are continuous series of events, closely connected in point of time, which lead up to the main transaction.

Continuous acts or a series of events, especially when closely connected in point of time, which lead up to and are necessary or clearly helpful to a correct understanding of the main transaction -- which tend to explain and elucidate the conduct and purposes of the parties--are as much of the res gestae as the direct act itself, and are admissible as a part of the transaction.

16 C. J., 572, 573; 30 C. J. 194, 195; 6 Ency. Ev. 610-612; McCormick v. State, 132 So. 757.

As to the law on the question of whether the defendant, Cartee, was acting within his rights at the time in question, we refer the court to Section 632 of the Code of 1930.

Cartee was executing the criminal laws of the state in seeking to arrest a defendant in a criminal case at the request of his bail, or to accept his surrender therefrom, and such action was within his county. In fact, it is not even necessary that he should have been an officer to have had a right to arrest the deceased at the request of his bail, under and by virtue of section 1250 of the Code of 1930.

Section 1251 of the Code of 1930.

These statutes on the subject of the arrest of the defendant by or at the request of his bail are merely declaratory of the common law.

If there was ever a case in the history of the jurisprudence of this state, wherein instructions embodying the doctrine set out in instructions No. 20 and 21, to the effect that no juror should compromise his honest convictions in order to bring in a verdict, or should compromise on a verdict of manslaughter, when he had a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant are applicable, this case is such a one.

Under our law, instructions embodying this one juror and noncompromise doctrine, must always be given in a criminal case and especially in a murder case where there is a serious conflict as to the guilt of the defendant and where it does not follow inevitably from all of the evidence that the jury can reach no other verdict than that of guilty, and we plant ourselves upon this principle and this law in this case.

Speaks v. State, 136 So. 921; Sanford v. State, 125 So. 726; Thomas v. State, 60 So. 781; Bell v. State, 42 So. 542; Ammons v. State, 42 So. 165; Lawson v. State, 40 So. 325.

In the giving of the instruction on the presumption of innocence to the state, the state attempted to limit or qualify the well recognized doctrine of the presumption of innocence and that as an attempted limitation, or qualification thereof, the instruction is bad and constitutes reversible error and if erroneous, it was certainly prejudicial to appellant, and reversible error.

Eugene B. Ethridge, Assistant Attorney-General, for the Sate.

Court's refusal to allow Vail to testify to remote facts not directly connected with the major transaction was not error.

It might be said that in the light of a showing that the excluded testimony had to do with the service of a warrant for the same charge which was later the cause of the homicide the testimony even though going back several weeks should have been admitted. The obvious answer to such an argument is that the failure of the other officers to execute the process, their points of view and ideas would throw no light upon the main transaction. In fact, testimony to this effect is so far removed and so distantly connected as to have no bearing upon the homicide and, in effect, has no relation in kind to the crime with which appellant is charged.

The facts in this case and the McCormick case are so easily distinguished as to quickly eliminate the application of the rule there announced.

Whittington v. State, 160 Miss. 705.

The court's refusal of constable instructions on behalf of appellant was a proper ruling.

The appellant requested several instructions which the court declined to grant, stating that the appellant as a constable of district No. 4 of Clay county had authority to go into district No. 5 of said county and arrest McGee. The appellant had no official right to go into a district other than the one for which he had been elected. His authority as an officer was confined to district No. 4 of Clay county, and the court, therefore, was correct in refusing to grant these instructions.

State v. Messer, 142 Miss. 882, 884.

A constable may not go beyond the confines of his district and perform official acts.

Riley v. James, 73 Miss. 1; Boutwell v. Grayson, 118 Miss. 80; Section 171 of the Constitution of the State of Mississippi.

Also it is to be noted that the deceased was not an escaping-miscreant. Constable Cartee was clearly going beyond the territorial limits of his office and in so doing was attempting to confer upon himself official authority which the laws of this state do not sanction. In attempting to make an unlawful arrest he was acting beyond the scope of his authority, and the deceased was entirely within his rights had he elected to resist the arrest with such force as was necessary.

The refusal of noncompromise instruction rested in sound discretion of trial judge.

Where the instructions to the jury furnish an adequate and sufficient guide as to the law, the court's refusal to allow further instructions is within its discretion and does not amount to prejudicial error.

Reeves v. State, 159 Miss. 498; Wiley v. State, 129 Miss. 196; Reynolds v. State, 136 Miss. 329; Cain v. State, 135 Miss. 892; Frazier v. State, 141 Miss. 18; Borders v. State, 138 Miss. 788.

OPINION

Griffith, J.

Appellant was indicted for the murder of O. G. McGee, and on the trial was convicted of manslaughter. The testimony of the several witnesses is in conflict, some of them supporting the charge of murder; some of them made out a case of...