Gray v. State

• Decision Date: 13 October 1930
• Docket Number: 28866
• Citation: 158 Miss. 266,130 So. 150
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: GRAY v. STATE

130 So. 150

158 Miss. 266

GRAY v. STATE

No. 28866

Supreme Court of Mississippi

October 13, 1930

Division A

HOMICIDE.

In prosecution for murder, evidence held, to establish that defendant shot deceased in self-defense, warranting discharge.

HON. S F. DAVIS, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Humphreys county, HON. S. F. DAVIS Judge.

Alonzo Gray was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals. Reversed and defendant discharged.

Judgment reversed, and appellant discharged.

R. H. Mason, of Belzoni, for appellant.

If the evidence is undisputed and the defendant was in actual danger or had reasonable grounds to apprehend the same, then it becomes the duty of the court to discharge the defendant.

Houston v. State, 78 So. 182; Strahan v. State, 108 So. 502; Gaddis v. State, 110 So. 691; Wesley v. State, 120 So. 918; Waters v. State, 122 So. 189; Johnson v. State, 30 So. 39, 40; Long v. State, 52 Miss. 23; Bang v. State, 60 Miss. 571.

If the evidence is undisputed, and the defendant's testimony is reasonable, and makes out a case of self-defense and is uncontradicted by evidence or physical facts, the jury has no right to disbelieve defendant and the court will overrule its verdict.

Gaddis v. State, 110 So. 691; Houston v. State, 78 So. 182.

Edwin R. Holmes, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

Where the testimony of the sole eyewitness to the crime makes out a case of self-defense, and it is unreasonable on its face, or inconsistent with the physical facts and attendant circumstances, it is the province of the jury to determine whether the explanation is true or not. The jury do not have to believe all of the statements of the person accused of the homicide who admits the slaying but says that he killed in self-defense.

Wingo v. State, 91 Miss. 865, 45 So. 862.

In the instant case, the physical facts are inconsistent with the story of the eyewitnesses, the tale as told by the defendant and his friend is not reasonable.

OPINION

Cook, J.

In the circuit court of Humphreys county, the appellant was tried on a charge of murder, and was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to the state penitentiary for a term of five years, and, from this conviction and sentence, he prosecuted this appeal.

On the night of the alleged killing, the appellant was visiting at the home of Sarah Ward, near the plant of the Belgrade Lumber Company, in Humphreys county, Mississippi. The house in which Sarah Ward lived was the second of three houses standing in a row and facing a road or street. It was a dark and rainy night, and between seven and eight o'clock one Cuba Johnson, a witness for the state, went to the home of Sarah Ward to get the appellant to go with him. Just before Cuba Johnson and the appellant left the house of Sarah Ward, Gertrude Brown, who lived in an adjoining house, left the house of Sarah Ward. Several witnesses who were inside the three houses near where the killing occurred testified that, after Cuba Johnson and the appellant left Sarah Ward's house, they heard a pistol shot, and also heard Gertrude Brown say, "Please don't shoot me;" and one witness testified that, through a window in his house, he saw the flash of a gunshot.

The appellant's version of the actual killing, which was corroborated by the state witness, Cuba Johnson, was that when he and Johnson came out onto the front gallery of the house of ...