Johnson v. State
Decision Date | 26 November 1888 |
Citation | 66 Miss. 189,5 So. 95 |
Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Parties | WILLIAM JOHNSON v. THE STATE |
APPEAL from the circuit court of Holmes county, HON. C. H. CAMPBELL Judge.
Appellant was indicted and tried for murder. He was convicted of manslaughter, and appeals.
The opinion of the court is confined to the consideration of the single instruction set out therein.
Judgment reversed.
Hooker & Wilson, for appellant.
T. M Miller, attorney-general, for the state.
The cause was argued orally by G. A. Wilson, for appellant, and T. M. Miller, attorney-general, for the state.
This case furnishes another illustration of the danger of multiplying instructions in the trial of criminal causes. The facts given in evidence were conflicting but not complicated. According to the witnesses for the state, the appellant sought the deceased when he was quietly at work upon his own premises, and in malice arising from an old difficulty, murdered him as he sought safety in flight. According to the testimony of the defendant and his other witnesses, it was shown that the parties had been unfriendly and that deceased had made threats to kill appellant; that appellant while returning to his home was called by the deceased into his field, and a controversy having arisen the appellant sought to retire, when deceased made demonstrations of attacking him with deadly weapons, whereupon, and in self-defense, he fired upon and killed him. In determining the question of guilt or innocence under such circumstances, it would seem that but little aid could be afforded by instructions. But the record shows that the state asked for and obtained fifteen charges. One of them is erroneous, and must result in reversing the judgment. Though it probably exercised no influence in securing the verdict, we must assume that it was influential. The defendant, as we have said, testified that without any attack having been made by him, the deceased committed an overt act evidencing an intention to assail him with a deadly weapon, and that in protection of his life he slew him. Having given testimony of an overt act by the deceased, the accused was permitted to introduce the testimony of several witnesses, that a few days before the killing the deceased had made threats to kill the accused, and had exhibited a pistol which he declared he would use in their execution. But, at the instance of the state, the court charged the jury that
This instruction denied to the defendant the advantage of having the previous threats of the deceased considered by the jury as a part of the whole case submitted to its decision. The jury was directed not to consider this...
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