Jones v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 12 January 1911 |
| Citation | 111 Va. 862,69 S.E. 953 |
| Parties | JONES v. COMMONWEALTH. PERKINS v. SAME. |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
Where one of those accused of a homicide was taken from the custody of the deputy sheriff, who had arrested him without a warrant, by a mob, which nearly killed him in attempting to extort a confession, and citizens occupying responsible official positions had refused to answer questions concerning this affair on the ground of self-incrimination, though maintaining that accused could receive a fair trial, and newspapers published intemperate editorials demanding conviction, the state of feeling was such that the situation would not have been relieved by importing a jury from another county, and a change of venue should have been granted.
[Ed. Note.—For other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. § 243; Dec. Dig. § 126.*]
In a prosecution for murder, evidence offered by defendant that, when the state's attorney sent one of its witnesses to testify before the grand jury, he told such witness that he would never ask a jury to convict on his testimony, was admissible to affect such witness' credibility; the entire testimony for the state being that of accomplices.
[Ed. Note.—For other cases, see Witnesses, Cent. Dig. § 1183; Dec. Dig. § 366.*]
The testimony of one accomplice cannot be corroborated by the testimony of another accomplice, though the jury may convict on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice.
[Ed. Note.—For other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. § 1137; Dec. Dig. § 511.*]
The jury may convict on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice.
[Ed. Note.—For other cases, see Criminal Law, Cent. Dig. §§ 1124-1126; Dec. Dig. § 510.*]
Error to Circuit Court, Buckingham County.
Richard Perkins and Ed. Jones were convicted of murder, and bring error. Reversed and remanded.
A. S. Hall, for plaintiff in error Perkins. A. S. Hall and A. E. Strode, for plaintiff in error.
Jones. Samuel W. Williams, Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.
These are companion cases. They arose out of the same transaction, are dependent substantially upon the sameevidence, the assignments of error are common to both, and therefore they may be disposed of in one opinion.
On the night of April 17, 1909, a log cabin situated in Buckingham county, owned and occupied by two elderly bachelor brothers, T. C. Stuart and W. J. Stuart, was entirely destroyed by fire. The fire was discovered early the next morning, and when the neighbors appeared on the scene they found in the still burning building the partially consumed trunks of two human bodies, which were identified with reasonable certainty as the remains of the Stuart brothers. The smaller of the two skeletons, answering in size to that of W. J. Stuart, was lying near the fire place; and a physician who examined fragments of the skull discovered a number of leaden pellets embedded in the inside of the parietal bone taken from the left side of the skull, which he identified as shot. The witness also testified that the passage of those shot from one side of a human skull to the other would cause instant death. The remains of the other brother were found in a corner of the room, with the head missing and the neck smooth, as though the head had been severed from the body.
The Stuarts were reputed to have had money, and it was generally believed throughout the county that they were murdered and robbed, and their home burned to conceal the crime. The community was naturally deeply aroused by the suspicion that a dreadful crime had been perpetrated in their midst, and active efforts were put forth to ascertain the guilty agents. To that end the Governor of the state and the board of supervisors of the county offered rewards, aggregating $600, for each person convicted of the offense. Nevertheless, it was not until some two months had elapsed after the fire that Willie Jackson, a negro boy about 17 years of age, implicated W. Dallas Wright, a white man, and the plaintiffs in error, Jones and Perkins, negroes, as the perpetrators of the triple crime of murder, robbery, and arson. Jackson professed to have been an eyewitness to the tragedy, and upon his testimony a grand jury of the circuit court of Buckingham county, at the July term, 1909, returned a joint indictment against the three parties, charging them with the murder of the Stuarts: whereupon each of them elected to be tried separately.
Wright and Jones were twice put on trial. The first trials were had before his honor, Judge B. T. Gordon, who was at that time judge of the circuit court. The jury failed to agree in Wright's case. Jones was found guilty of murder in the first degree, but the court set aside the verdict as contrary to the law and evidence. In an able opinion, Judge Gordon, after a searching review of the testimony of the alleged eyewitnesses, Willie Jackson and Aylett Johnson, charac terized their statements as so incredible as to challenge human belief.
Before the next term of the court, the county of Buckingham became a part of his honor, Judge George J. Hundley's circuit, who presided at subsequent trials of the accused. A verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree was found in each case, which the court refused to set aside, and rendered the judgments which are now before us for review.
The first assignment of error involves the action of the court in overruling the motion for a change of venue.
The motion was founded upon the allegation that public opinion was so strong against the accused that they could not get a fair and impartial trial in Buckingham county. A number of witnesses were examined, many of whom, it is true, expressed the opinion that the prisoners could have a fair and impartial trial in the county; yet, on cross-examination, these same witnesses, practically without exception, admitted that the belief was almost universal throughout the community that the accused were guilty. It was also shown that, before these prosecutions were set on foot, a deputy sheriff, accompanied by his son, went to the home of Richard Perkins in the nighttime, and, arousing him out of bed, arrested him for the murder of the Stuarts. The officer pretended to be acting under a warrant; but no such paper was produced, and the fact of its existence was not established. The prisoner, who was neither handcuffed nor tied, willingly accompanied the parties, both of whom were on horseback, while he was afoot; and within 300 yards from his house he was set upon by a mob of armed men, who took him from the custody of the deputy sheriff, and putting a rope around his neck, repeatedly drew him up over the limb of a tree for the purpose of extorting a confession. Facing what must have appeared to him immediate death at the hands of these lawless people, he stoutly proclaimed his innocence, denying either complicity in, or any knowledge of the perpetrators of, the crime. The mob then delivered him to the officer, who, after conveying him a mile away from the scene, discharged him, with the injunction that he must come to the courthouse next day, which he did.
It is not possible to read the evidence bearing upon this episode without being satisfied that the deputy sheriff connived at this partial lynching of his prisoner. It also appears that other citizens of the county, occupying responsible official positions, if not actual participants in the outrage, were at least so closely associated with it...
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...v. Pressel, 194 Pa.Super. 367, 168 A.2d 779 (1961); Sherrill v. State, 204 Tenn. 427, 321 S.W.2d 811 (1959); Jones v. Commonwealth, 111 Va. 862, 69 S.E. 953 (1911), an accomplice's wife usually may do so if she herself is not an accomplice, See e.g., Nix v. Commonwealth, 299 S.W.2d 609 (Ky.......
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