Hicks v. State
| Decision Date | 02 November 1905 |
| Docket Number | 20,499 |
| Citation | 75 N.E. 641,165 Ind. 440 |
| Parties | Hicks v. The State |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From Criminal Court of Marion County (34,360); Fremont Alford Judge.
Prosecution by the State of Indiana against Ella Hicks for murder. From a judgment of conviction, defendant appeals.
Reversed.
Henry Seyfried and Charles J. McGroarty, for appellant.
Charles W. Miller, Attorney-General, C. C. Hadley, L. G. Rothschild and W. C. Geake, for the State.
Appellant was found guilty of murder in the second degree upon an indictment charging her with murder in the first degree.
The only error properly assigned and not waived calls in question the action of the court in overruling appellant's motion for a new trial.
Complaint is made of the rulings of the court in admitting certain evidence over the objection made by appellant that the same "was incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, and throws no light on the issues in the case." It has been uniformly held by this court that such grounds of objection stated in the trial court were too indefinite, uncertain and general to present any question. Musser v State (1901), 157 Ind. 423, 430, 431, 61 N.E. 1, and cases cited; Mortgage Trust Co. v. Moore (1898), 150 Ind. 465, 470, 50 N.E. 72.
Counsel for appellant insist that the court erred in refusing to permit them to read in evidence the proceedings of an examination by a commission as to the sanity of a witness on behalf of the State, instituted in 1899 before justices Smock and Lockman, of Marion county, Indiana, for the purpose of determining whether she was a proper subject to be admitted for treatment to the hospital for insane. These proceedings were offered in evidence as affecting the credibility of said witness, and were properly excluded. Naanes v State (1896), 143 Ind. 299, 303-305, 42 N.E. 609; Goodwin v. State (1884), 96 Ind. 550, 564.
Kate McCotter, a witness for the State, testified that she was present at the altercation between appellant and Joseph Iddings, the deceased, and saw appellant fire the shot which caused the death of said Iddings, and gave an account of all that occurred at the time. On cross-examination, she was asked by counsel for appellant if she had not stated to certain persons--naming them--that she was not present when the trouble between appellant and Iddings occurred; that she was not present when the shot was fired and Iddings was killed. She answered that she had not made said statements. To impeach said witness appellant called witnesses who testified that they heard the witness McCotter make said statements. In rebuttal, the State, to support said witness, proved by an employe in the coroner's office all the evidence given by said Kate McCotter at the coroner's inquest, including not only her testimony that she was present at the altercation between appellant and Iddings, and when the fatal shot was fired, but, over appellant's objection, what she testified was said and done by appellant and the deceased at the time he was killed.
It is settled law in this State that in cases where a witness is contradicted by evidence of statements different from those made at the trial, and the contradiction is by way of impeachment, the party by whom the witness was called may prove statements made about the time the contradictory statements are alleged to have been made in harmony with those made by the witness at the trial. Coffin v Anderson (1837), 4 Blackf. 395, 398, 399; Beauchamp v. State (1842), 6 Blackf. 299; Dailey v. State, ex rel. (1867), 28 Ind. 285; Brookbank v. State, ex rel. (1876), 55 Ind. 169, 172; Carter v. Carter (1881), 79 Ind. 466; Dodd v. Moore (1883), 92 Ind. 397, 398; Hodges v. Bales (1885), 102 Ind. 494, 500, 1 N.E. 692; Hobbs v. State (1893), 133 Ind. 404, 407, 408, 18 L. R. A. 774, 32 N.E. 1019; Hinshaw v. State (1897), 147 Ind. 334, 372, 47...
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