Johnson v. State
| Decision Date | 26 May 1902 |
| Citation | 32 So. 49,80 Miss. 798 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | IRVING JOHNSON v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI |
March 1902
FROM the circuit court of Warren county HON. GEORGE ANDERSON Judge.
Johnson appellant, and one, William Henderson, were indicted for the murder of Willis Jefferson; there was a severance, and the appellant was tried separately, convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of ten years; from which conviction and sentence he appealed to the supreme court. His co-defendant, William Henderson, testified as a witness for the state. The facts are otherwise sufficiently inferable from the opinion of the court.
Reversed and remanded.
T. G. Burchett, Jr., and D. Marshall, for appellant.
The court below erred in permitting the state's witnesses, over the objection of defendant, to testify concerning the overalls and the shirt, and to show that these garments were spotted with blood, and that they had been washed in part. It was clearly shown, and not disputed, that the state was in possession of the garments, and the garments themselves furnished the best evidence as to whether they were bloody and washed in spots. Such evidence is not admissible without the production of the objects themselves, or a showing accounting for the failure to produce them. Page v. State, 59 Miss. 480; Rapalje's Criminal Procedure, sec. 275; 3 Rice on Criminal Evidence, sec. 28.
W. L. Easterling, Assistant Attorney-General, for appellee.
We have not been able to find authority for the proposition that the clothes had to be produced or their loss accounted for satisfactorily before evidence could be received of the blood spots on them shortly after the crime was committed, or that an effort has been made to wash the garments. Page v. State, 59 Miss. 480, cited and relied upon by appellant's attorney does not cover the case. That decision relates to written documents, and it is respectfully submitted that it cannot be extended, nor can the rule in reference to the production of writings be properly applied to old clothes.
Argued orally by T. G. Burchett, Jr., for appellant.
Without the testimony of Win. Henderson, defendant could not have been convicted. At any rate, no court would have permitted a verdict of guilty to stand. This witness presents himself in most questionable shape. He it was, and he only, who went to and left Vicksburg in a wagon with...
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