Harmon v. State

• Decision Date: 13 June 1932
• Docket Number: 30112
• Citation: 167 Miss. 527,142 So. 473
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: HARMON v. STATE

142 So. 473

167 Miss. 527

HARMON v. STATE

No. 30112

Supreme Court of Mississippi

June 13, 1932

(Division B.)

HOMICIDE.

Conviction of murder as accessory before fact on uncorroborated testimony of actual killer, whose testimony was shown unworthy of belief, held not sustainable.

Division B

APPEAL from the circuit court of Monroe county.

HON THOS. H. JOHNSTON, Judge.

Loyce Harmon was convicted of murder as accessory before the fact and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded.

Leftwich & Tubb, of Aberdeen, for appellant.

We recognize the rule in this state that one accused of crime may be convicted on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice, but this rule has its limitations. It is a general rule of the courts everywhere, as we understand the law, that the testimony of an accomplice is not entitled to the same weight and credibility as the testimony of other witnesses, for the reason that this testimony comes from a polluted source and must be received with great caution, suspicion and distrust. The witness comes into court as a confessed criminal and frequently as a confessed perjurer, and then too for the reason that the witness may have strong motives to testify falsely.

16 C. J., p. 694, Criminal Law, secs. 1420, 1423, 1424, 1425 and 1426; Abele v. State, 103 So. 370, 138 Miss. 772; Wright v. State, 94 So. 116, 130 Miss. 603; Hunter v. State, 102 So. 282, 137 Miss. 276; White v. State, 102 So. 207, 146 Miss. 815; Pruitt v. State, 139 So. 861.

Corroboration may be necessary where there are circumstances, apart from the fact that the witness is an accomplice, which tend to throw suspicion upon his testimony, as where the testimony is contradictory or inconsistent in itself; where it is directly contradicted by other witnesses; or where it appears that a witness has sworn falsely as to a material matter.

16 C. J., sec. 1425.

It is true that, under the law, one may be convicted of crime on the unsupported testimony of an alleged accomplice. Such testimony, however, should be viewed with great caution and suspicion. If the testimony of the alleged accomplice is so weak as not to be believable by the reasonable mind, it should be rejected as amounting to no substantial evidence of guilt.

White v. State, 146 Miss. 815; Abele v. State, 138 Miss. 772; Pruitt v. State, 139 So. 861.

W. D. Conn, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General for the state.

Except as to some minor details the conviction in this case was had on the uncorroborated testimony of the accomplice. Appellant recognizes the rule existing in this state with reference to convictions on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice, and therefore, it is necessary, from his standpoint, to insist that the testimony of the state's witnesses is unreasonable, shadowy, contradictory, etc. The record discloses that the witnesses for the defendant had a miserable habit of flatfootedly contradicting each other at material points and it was the jury's duty to sift this testimony and as they were there present and had the opportunity of observing the witnesses as they gave their testimony, it will take a strong showing of unreasonableness to set aside their verdict.

There is no doubt about it, the testimony of the state's witnesses and the testimony of the defendant's witnesses was conflicting. Therefore, in this state of the case, on the conflicting testimony, it was for the jury to say by its verdict, who it believed. They have done so and I submit that the record does not sustain the construction placed upon the testimony for the state insisted for by appellant. The showing of impossibility and improbability and unreasonableness does not appear to such an extent that the court would be warranted in reversing judgment.

OPINION

Griffith, J.

Appellant a young mail twenty-two years of age, of established good character, was convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment, as an accessory before the fact in the murder of Remus Cooper, on the uncorroborated testimony of Martha Cooper, the nineteen year old daughter of the deceased. The said daughter was the actual killer, as she freely admitted on the witness stand. Mr. Cooper was slain with a shotgun as he lay sound asleep about ten o'clock at night. He was a tenant farmer, and he and his daughter were the only occupants of his home. She had taken the shotgun from its accustomed place in the house and had hidden it near her bed, and after her father was known to her to be in deep sleep she crept to his bedside and discharged the gun into the vitals of his body at close range. Immediately after the shooting, she ran to the home of a near neighbor and told that, while she and her father slept, some unknown man had come into her father's room and had taken the shotgun from the rack and had then gone into the kitchen, and that, while he was in there, she had jumped up and escaped from the house, and that as she paused on the porch she heard...