Heard v. The State

• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: CHALMERS, J.
• Citation: Heard v. The State, 59 Miss. 545 (Miss. 1882)
• Decision Date: 10 May 1882
• Parties: LEWIS HEARD v. THE STATE

59 Miss. 545

LEWIS HEARD v. THE STATE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

May 10, 1882

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Carroll County Hon. C. H. Campbell Judge.

Judgment affirmed.

Helm &amp Somerville, for the appellant.

The confession was inadmissible because the corpus delicti was not proved and because the writing required by law was not produced. Stringfellow v. State, 26 Miss. 157; Pitts v. State, 43 Miss. 472; Jenkins v State, 41 Miss. 582; State v. Laliyer, 4 Minn. 368; Peter v. State, 4 S. & M. 31; Wright v. State, 50 Miss. 332. Evidence of Nash's admission was in his absence competent as res gestae of the confession.

T. C. Catchings, Attorney General, for the State.

Objection to non-production of the writing comes too late. The ground in the lower court was failure to prove the corpus delicti. This is not sustained by the record. The evidence of Nash's admission was hearsay, and properly excluded.

OPINION

CHALMERS, J.

The appellant was convicted, principally on his own confessions of grand larceny in stealing the money of one Nash. Nash, who we presume was dead or beyond the jurisdiction, was not produced as a witness, and it is insisted that there is no proof of the corpus delicti, except by the confessions of the accused, which according to the authority of Jenkins v. State, 41 Miss. 582, and other cases, are insufficient of themselves to sustain a conviction. Where there has been a confession by the accused, much slighter proof is required to establish the corpus delicti than would be necessary where the State must make out the entire case, unaided by a confession. Any corroborative proof in such a case will be held sufficient which satisfies the mind that it is a real and not an imaginary crime which the accused has confessed, and the fact that he was the guilty party may be found by the jury, on proof much slighter than that ordinarily essential. People v. Badgley, 16 Wend. 53. It is shown here that Nash was seeking a lost pocket-book, that suspicion pointing to the accused, he was arrested, and just as the arrest took place he was observed to throw away a pocket-book which was immediately identified in his presence by Nash as his lost property, and Nash's assertion to that effect was not denied by the accused. Some papers which had been in the pocket-book were found in the place where the accused said that he had thrown them. These facts, established by testimony dehors the confession, were sufficient proof of the corpus delicti to warrant conviction on the full and explicit confession subsequently made before the magistrate after...