Humphreys v. State

• Decision Date: 12 April 1920
• Docket Number: 20920
• Citation: 122 Miss. 41,84 So. 141
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: HUMPHREYS v. STATE

84 So. 141

122 Miss. 41

HUMPHREYS v. STATE

No. 20920

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 12, 1920

March 1920

1. WHERE EVIDENCE IS CIRCUMSTANTIAL NO ERROR MUST BE COMMITTED IN EXCLUSION OR ADMISSION OF TESTIMONY.

Where the guilt of an accused in a criminal case must depend altogether upon circumstantial evidence, a fair administration of justice requires that no error should be committed in the exclusion or admission of testimony especially where the case is a close one upon the facts.

2. CRIMINAL LAW. Statements of defendant's wife out of defendant's hearing recognizing guilt held inadmissible.

On the trial of a defendant indicted for the larceny of certain seed cotton, it was error to permit the officer making the arrest to detail a conversation or statements of the defendant's wife, made out of the hearing of the defendant, tending to recognize or confess defendant's guilt.

3. CRIMINAL LAW. That defendant's wife since his arrest destroyed a cotton sack used in transporting cotton held inadmissible.

On the trial of one indicted for the larceny of seed cotton, where the testimony for the state tended to prove that the cotton was transported from a field by mule back, it was error to permit the officer making the arrest to testify to circumstances tending to show that the defendant's wife since the arrest, cut up into strips or destroyed a large cotton sack theretofore used by the defendant in transporting cotton from his field to his cotton pen.

HON CHAS. LEE CRUM, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Marshall county, HON. CHAS. LEE CRUM, Judge.

Buel Humphreys was convicted of larceny, and he appeals.

Reversed and remanded.

Lester, G. Fant and D. M. Featherston, for appellant.

N. T. Currie, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

OPINION

STEVENS, J.

Appellant was indicted and convicted of the larceny of certain seed cotton, and from the judgment imposing a sentence of two years in the state penitentiary he prosecutes this appeal. The stolen cotton was the joint property of a Mr. Smith, the landlord, and Eddie Jones, a share cropper. On the trial there was testimony tending to prove that Jones, the negro share cropper, had picked and piled in his field some eight hundred pounds of seed cotton. About seven hundred pounds of the cotton disappeared from the field one Friday night in November, 1917. Upon investigation there were evidences of a man's track leading from the pile of cotton in the field some one hundred yards distant in the woods where apparently a mule had been hitched to a tree. Small particles of cotton were scattered along the way. From the point where the mule apparently had been hitched along through the woods to the home and cotton pen of appellant there were further evidences of mule tracks and cotton strewed along the way. Mule tracks showed a split or defect in the mule's hoof, and upon comparison and test the tracks of the mule corresponded with and appeared to be the genuine tracks of the defendant's mule. There is further evidence tending to show that there was a slight rain on Friday night, that some of the cotton in the defendant's cotton pen was stained and thereby showed that the cotton had been raised on clay land, and that the stolen cotton had in fact been cultivated and raised on clay soil. There was no eyewitness to the actual taking of the cotton or the identity of the guilty party. The state's case was proven altogether by circumstances. Appellant and one Mathews used the same barn, but each had his own mule and cotton pen. There is proof tending to show that Jones had gone some distance to a party and did not return until Saturday night. There is proof tending to show that Mathews, who lived near the defendant and on the same farm, hauled some seed cotton to the gin and market on Saturday. The defendant was a witness in his own behalf, and denied any knowledge of or participation in the theft.

For the state the court granted the general instruction that, if the jury should believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant took, stole, and carried away the cotton in question, they should find the defendant guilty as charged, and likewise an instruction that the jury do not have to "know" that the defendant is guilty in order to convict him, but it is sufficient if they "only believe from the evidence in the case beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty."

For the defendant there were several instructions upon reasonable doubt and the presumption of innocence, and likewise several instructions making plain to the jury that before they could convict the defendant upon...