Holifield v. State
| Decision Date | 14 May 1923 |
| Docket Number | 23076 |
| Citation | 132 Miss. 446,96 So. 306 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | HOLIFIELD v. STATE |
CRIMINAL LAW. Where unreasonable story of prosecutrix is contradicted by credible witnesses, new trial should be granted.
In a rape case, where the only direct evidence of the guilt of the defendant is that of the injured female, whose history of the crime in its essential details is highly unreasonable and unnatural, and in addition she is contradicted in many of the material portions of her testimony by credible witnesses, a new trial should be granted.
APPEAL from circuit court of Jones county, HON. R. S. HALL, Judge.
Fate Holifield was convicted of rape, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
Pack & Pack and B. F. Carter, for appellant.
H. C Holden, assistant attorney-general, for the state.
Appellant Holifield was indicted and convicted in the circuit court of the Second district of Jones county of the crime of rape, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life, from which judgment he prosecutes this appeal.
After careful and oft-repeated consideration of the record in this case, we have reached the conclusion that appellant ought to have another trial; that the evidence for the state is so weak that another jury ought to be permitted to pass on the guilt of the appellant. In the first place, the injured female came upon the scene with suggestive shadows in her past history. Hers, of course, was the only direct evidence of appellant's guilt. The details of the crime as testified to by her strike the reasonable mind as most unnatural; and furthermore she is contradicted by credible witnesses in many of the most material portions of her testimony. Her story, in connection with all the facts and circumstances, is hard to believe, though we will not say unbelievable. No good purpose would be answered by setting out the evidence, either in detail or outline. What Judge CAMPBELL said in Monroe v. State, 71 Miss. 196, 13 So. 884, in reference to a case of this character, seems applicable here. We quote it:
...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Odom v. State
... ... impartial trial which section 26 of our Constitution ... guarantees to him ... Magness ... case, 103 Miss. 30, 60 So. 8; Cartwright v. State, ... 71 Miss. 82, 14 So. 526; Sprinkle v. State, 102 So ... 844, 137 Miss. 731; Holifield v. State, 132 Miss ... 446, 96 So. 306; Davis v. State, 132 Miss. 448, 96 So. 307 ... On the ... morning of September 28th, the evidence having all been then ... submitted, Mr. Bell, one of the jury bailiffs, purchased for ... Dan Rimmer, a juror, the Commercial Appeal, in which was ... ...
-
Ross v. State
...23 (1954); Williams v. State, 220 Miss. 800, 72 So.2d 147 (1954); Martin v. State, 197 Miss. 96, 19 So.2d 488 (1944); Holifield v. State, 132 Miss. 446, 96 So. 306 (1923); Bolden v. State, 98 Miss. 723, 54 So. 241 (1910). A greater quantum of evidence favoring the State is necessary for the......
- Dean v. State
- Dean v. State