Dixon v. State

• Decision Date: 31 March 1913
• Docket Number: 16,510
• Citation: 61 So. 423,104 Miss. 410
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: JIM DIXON v. STATE,

61 So. 423

104 Miss. 410

JIM DIXON v. STATE,

No. 16,510

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 31, 1913

APPEAL from the circuit court of Hinds county, HON. W. A. HENRY Judge.

Jim Dixon was convicted of manslaughter and appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Reversed and remanded.

Holmes & Holmes and Wells & Wells for appellant.

W. J Croom and Geo. H. Ethridge, assistant attorney-general, for the state.

No brief of counsel on either side found in the record.

OPINION

COOK J.

Jim Dixon, defendant below, and his father, were drunk. Jim had a pistol concealed upon his person, and fired this pistol into the ground. The bullet struck a tin can, glanced, and struck and killed a young woman standing upon the porch or gallery of a storehouse near by. The pistol was fired by defendant while he was in or near the public highway, and the scene of the tragedy was near a crossroads country store in Yazoo county. Thus it will be observed that Jim was then and there violating three of the statutes of the state, viz., carrying a concealed weapon, drunk in a public place, and shooting on the public highway.

The trial court instructed the jury to find the defendant guilty of they believed from the evidence, beyond all reasonable doubt, that defendant was guilty of any one of these misdemeanors, and that while so guilty the bullet from the pistol struck and killed the deceased, the jury should return a verdict of manslaughter. Indisputably defendant was guilty of violating each of the statutes, and it could not be denied, and was not denied. The jury seems to have been composed of honest men, and in obedience to their oaths returned a verdict of guilty of manslaughter, as they had been instructed to do. There was no other possible verdict, when the court instructed the jury to find the defendant guilty, if he was guilty of doing what he admitted having done.

It logically follows, that the jury was peremptorily directed to find the defendant guilty. The instructions given by the court embody the idea, and are so construed by the learned attorney-general, that it was not necessary that the doing of the things done should have had any natural or necessary relation to, or connection with, the homicide, but, on the contrary, it was only necessary to show that a misdemeanor was committed and a homicide followed. It will be noted that the instructions of the court omitted any qualifications, or limitations, but told the jury that the defendant was guilty of manslaughter if the deceased was killed by him while he was committing a misdemeanor, although the jury might believe that the death of the young woman was not the natural and probable result of the unlawful act.

The refused instructions asked by the defendant told the jury that they could not convict the defendant unless the death was the natural or probable result of the acts of defendant. The acts of defendant were not naturally evil, but were only wrong because prohibited by the statutory law of the state they were not per se vicious, or dangerous, from the commission of which a depraved heart can be inferred, but are merely misdemeanors by the act of the legislature. If his acts and conduct were of such a character as to evince a reckless and wanton disregard of human life and death resulting from such acts defendant would be criminally guilty and punishable for his crime of murder. ...