Harris v. State
| Decision Date | 10 October 1938 |
| Docket Number | 33222 |
| Citation | 183 So. 521,182 Miss. 791 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | HARRIS v. STATE |
1 HOMICIDE.
Evidence sustained conviction of manslaughter.
2. CRIMINAL LAW.
APPEAL from the circuit court of Alcorn county HON. THOS. H JOHNSTON, Judge.
W. A Harris was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Affirmed.
Ely B. Mitchell, of Corinth, for appellant.
The testimony with reference to all of the threats and the conduct of the deceased which had a tendency to show the hostile feeling on the part of the deceased toward the appellant was competent, and the trial court committed error in refusing to allow the defendant in the trial of the case to tell the jury what happened at the Chase home. This court has repeatedly held that where there is doubt, confusion, dispute, or conflict as to the origin of the difficulty, or as to who was aggressor in the difficulty which resulted in the death, and when such fact is pivotal one in the case, testimony even of uncommunicated threats and the nature and character of the previous difficulties wantonly provoked by the deceased is admissible, provided the testimony shows some overt act on the part of the deceased at the time of the fatal encounter.
Brown v. State, 88 Miss. 166; Hendrix v. State, 172 Miss. 589.
What evidence is there on which to base a verdict of guilty of manslaughter in this case? The evidence of Curtis Kilcrease is that Joe Little was standing out in the yard doing nothing at the time he was shot, but he tells Dr. Montgomery and Joe Gray that he did not see the killing; he testified he did not know who did the killing, and three witnesses testify that he was in the east room where he could not have seen the killing. Our contention is that the evidence is so overwhelming that there is no testimony upon which a verdict of guilty of manslaughter could possibly stand.
G. C. Moreland, of Corinth, and W. D. Conn, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.
It is said that the court erred in refusing to allow the defendant to show the details of the difficulty between deceased and appellant and appellant's daughter during the afternoon preceding the killing.
Mrs. Lena Chase showed that at a certain time and place during the afternoon the deceased had made an unprovoked assault upon her and her father with a clawhammer and at that time had threatened to kill both of them and get them out of the way. Appellant, himself, was allowed to testify to the same matters and things. Having been allowed to show virtually in detail this previous difficulty, we think appellant got the benefit of all he was entitled to. Generally speaking, the details of a previous difficulty are not admissible.
Hardy v. State, 143 Miss. 352, 108 So. 727; Carter v. State, 167 Miss. 331, 145 So. 739.
In this case, however, the record tends to show that the court admitted practically every detail of the previous difficulty which the appellant offered in evidence.
Where the evidence is sufficient to justify a conviction of murder a convict cannot complain that he was convicted of manslaughter or...
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