Clemmons v. State

• Decision Date: 02 March 1908
• Citation: 45 So. 834,92 Miss. 244
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: CLARK CLEMMONS v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

45 So. 834

92 Miss. 244

CLARK CLEMMONS v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 2, 1908

March 1908

FROM the circuit court of Tunica county, HON. SAMUEL C. COOK Judge.

Clemmons appellant, and another were jointly indicted for the murder of Archibald Rogers. A severance being had, appellant was separately tried and convicted, sentenced to suffer death and appealed to the supreme court.

Archibald Rogers, a negro, was assassinated at night. Clemmons, appellant, and one Joseph Saunders, both negroes, were jointly indicted for the murder. On the trial of the appellant, the evidence to convict him of the crime was largely circumstantial. As a motive for the killing of Rogers by appellant the state introduced witnesses to prove that one John Fields, a negro and close friend of appellant, in an altercation with one Mangum had been killed by the latter; that appellant had been heard to aver that Archibald Rogers had originated the trouble between Mangum and Fields and that he, appellant, was going to kill Archibald Rogers therefor. The witnesses for the state who testified as to this were allowed to narrate before the jury all of the details of the fatal altercation between Mangum and Fields. When such testimony was offered the trial court at first sustained appellant's objection thereto, but soon thereafter allowed the testimony to be introduced over defendant's protest.

Case reversed and remanded.

W. G. Dinning, for appellant.

It was error in the lower court to admit the details of the trouble between Mangum and Fields which resulted in the killing of Fields. Evidence as to the relations and feelings, or the occurrence of a previous difficulty, between the accused or the deceased and a third person is generally inadmissible. 21 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (2d ed.), 219, citing Bird v. United States, 180 U.S. 356 and other cases. See also Mabry v. State, 71 Miss. 716, 14 So. 267, and Levy v. State 70 Ark. 610.

Although the trial court at first sustained the objection of appellant to admission of these details between third persons in evidence, yet the court later allowed the state to provo the same. And this constituted reversible error.

George Butler, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.

No complaint is made by appellant as to instructions, the main point in the brief of appellant's counsel being in regard to the cross-examination of appellant by the district attorney as to appellant's connection with the killing of Fields by Mangum, and the state of appellant's mind toward Mangum and Fields.

As a general rule it is not permissible to prove the relations or feelings of accused toward third persons in trials for homicide; but when the purpose of such testimony is to furnish a motive for the crime, and to point to the accused as the probable perpetrator of it, this rule has no application in reason or in fact.

It is shown that appellant was angry with deceased because of the killing of Field by Mangum; that he was also angry with Mangum; that appellant stated several times that deceased was the instigator of that killing; that he stated several times that the boy killed by...