Jones v. State
| Citation | 165 Miss. 810,146 So. 138 |
| Decision Date | 20 February 1933 |
| Docket Number | 30176 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi |
| Parties | JONES v. STATE |
1 WITNESSES.
Witness' testimony that he knew state's witness was mentally incapable of realizing solemnity of oath held relevant on question of credibility.
2 HOMICIDE. Refusal of new trial for murder for newly discovered evidence that defendant, when last seen alive, was quarreling with third persons, held error.
The deceased was last seen alive at 1:20 a. m., and an hour later his dead body was found on railroad tracks. The theory of the state was that defendant had murdered deceased at defendant's residence about half a mile from the tracks and that body was removed therefrom and placed on the tracks. On motion for new trial two witnesses testified that they saw deceased at 1:20 a. m., apparently intoxicated, engaged in altercation with named persons, of whom defendant was not one, and that deceased proposed they would not fight there, but go to his residence.
APPEAL from circuit court of Forrest county HON. W. J. PACK, Judge.
Tom Jones was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
Hearst & Pittman and Earle L. Wingo, all of Hattiesburg, for appellant.
Mr. Wills' connection with the prosecution, his prominence at the bar, his influence, conduct and testimony before the grand jury, as set out in his own testimony, amounted, in this case, to undue influence and pressure with the grand jury, and renders the indictment bad.
Welch v. State, 8 So. 673; Wilson v. State, 13 So. 225; State v. Barnett, 54 So. 313.
The state utterly failed to prove the corpus delicti, and utterly failed to prove the appellant guilty. All of the evidence taken together wholly fails to make a case against the defendant, and hence the trial court ought to have given the peremptory instructions asked for by the appellant.
Pitts v. State, 43 Miss. 472; Haynes v. State, 27 So. 601; Stringfellow v. State, 26 Miss. 157; Sam v. State, 33 Miss. 347; Jenkins v. State, 41 Miss. 582; Taylor v. State, 108 Miss. 18; Simmons v. State, 106 Miss. 732, 66 So. 321; Simmons v. State, 106 Miss. 732; Lewis v. State, 2 Miss. Dec. 567; King v. State, 74 Miss. 576, 21 So. 235; Allen v. State, 88 Miss. 159, 40 So. 744; Harper v. State, 27 So. 621; Alghery v. State, 25 Miss. 584; Haywood v. State, 90 Miss. 461, 43 So. 614; Cumberland v. State, 110 Miss. 521, 70 So. 695; Gurdy v. State, 144 Miss. 778, 110 So. 225.
The court ought to have sustained his original motion, and the amended motion, for a new trial, by which, he shows that he had important and material evidence which he had discovered after his trial and did not know about at the time of his trial, and by reasonable diligence could not have known about it.
Weatherby v. State, 95 Miss. 300, 48 So. 724; Buckner v. State, 81 Miss. 140, 32 So. 920; Turner v. State, 89 Miss. 621, 42 So. 165; White v. State, 45 So. 611; Watson v. State, 96 Miss. 369, 50 So. 627; Barrentine v. State, 51 So. 275.
A. Q. Broadus, of Purvis, for appellant.
A conviction may be had on circumstantial evidence alone when by it guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt; but before such evidence can be said to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, it must exclude every other reasonable hypothesis than that of guilt.
Hogan v. State, 90 So. 99; Nalls v. State, 90 So. 862; Williams v. State, 95 Miss. 671, 49 So. 513; Simmons v. State, 64 So. 721; John's Case, 24 Miss. 569; Morris Cases, 608; Caleb's Case, 39 Miss. 721, Morris State Cases, 1490; Algheri v. State, 25 Miss. 584, Morris State Cases, 658; Taylor v. State, 108 Miss. 18, 66 So. 321.
Earle L. Wingo, of Hatiesburg, for appellant.
There was error in granting of an instruction to the state, in these words.
"The court instructs the jury for the state that the killing of a human being, without the authority of law, by any means or in any manner, when done with deliberate design to affect the death of the person killed, and not in necessary self-defense is murder."
By the above instruction the jury is warranted in bringing in a verdict of guilty, even though there might not have appeared from the testimony any malice aforethought on the part of the appellant.
Where circumstantial evidence is relied on proof of the facts beyond a reasonable doubt of itself proves nothing. Unless the inference deducible from the facts so proven excludes beyond a reasonable doubt every other hypothesis than that of guilt.
Permenter v. State, 54 So. 949; Smith v. State, 47 So. 913; Williams v. State, 49 So. 519, 95, Miss. 671; Irvin v. State, 56 So. 377.
The granting of an instruction which attempts to define reasonable doubt is error.
A defendant in a criminal prosecution will be granted a new trial for newly discovered evidence which is material and vital to his defense and the existence of which was unknown and unsuspected by him, or his counsel, until after the trial.
Barrentine v. State, 51. So. 275.
The mental capacity of a witness is always a proper question to be considered as bearing upon his credibility; and where it can be shown that a state's witness is mentally incompetent, then such testimony should be admissible as tending to discredit him.
In order that a non-expert may testify as to another's sanity, the witness must be shown to have had an acquaintance with the subject sufficiently intimate and long to enable him to form a reasonable accurate and trustworthy opinion as to the other person's mental condition.
Odom v. State, 56 So. 913; Jones v. State, 61 So. 434; Harris v. State, 62 So. 477; Turner v. State, 72 So. 574; State v. Madena, 115 So. 661, 115 So. 417; Bacot v. State, 50 So. 500.
Where the prosecution fails to establish the corpus delicti, then the conviction must fail, for without it there could be no evidence of crime.
Taylor v. State, 108 Miss. 18, 66 So. 321.
The definition of malice aforethought in the last sentence of the second instruction is obviously wrong since a homicide may be designed and intended, and at the same time entirely justifiable. It is always safer for the representative of the state to follow the beaten path and to ask only for such instructions as have been approved by the courts.
Ellis v. State, 66 So. 323, 108 Miss. 62.
W. D. Conn, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.
The instruction complained literally follows the statutory definition of murder.
Subsection A, section 985, Miss. Code of 1930.
Premeditated design as used in the statute defining murder, at that time meant the same as "malice aforethought," at common-law.
McDaniel v. State, 8 S. & M. 401, 47 Am. D. 93.
The words "deliberate design" as then used in the statute, and which is used in the statute today has the same meaning as did "malice aforethought" at common-law.
Hawthorne v. State, 58 Miss. 778.
Reasonable doubt defines itself; it therefore needs no definition by the court.
Boutwell v. State, 143 So. 479.
This court has repeatedly said to define the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" cannot be done.
On the wording of the instruction itself, it is about as near a definition of that phrase as could be given.
It is undoubtedly the rule that courts will grant, with great reluctance, new trials founded on newly discovered evidence, especially when such evidence is merely cumulative, or which simply tends to impeach the testimony of one or more witnesses who have testified; but where the newly discovered evidence is corroborative, the rule is not enforced with the same strictness as where it is merely cumulative.
Williams v. State, 99 Miss. 274, 54 So. 857.
If the competency of a witness testifying in any cause is challenged or it is desired to challenge the competency of such witness, it is too late after the witness has been examined and cross-examined to go into the competency of the witness and have his testimony stricken out.
Jackson v. State, 130 So. 729.
A witness may be examined touching his interest in any cause and his answers may be contradicted and his interest shown by other evidence. No predicate was laid for any impeaching evidence, nor was any impeaching evidence offered.
The corpus delicti in this homicide under the authorities must consist of two substantial, fundamental facts. It must be shown, beyond a reasonable doubt, first, the death of Hansel Batten, and second, the fact of the existence of criminal agency as the cause of the death.
Mr. Wills was not a private prosecutor and he had accepted no retainer and had taken and would take no part in the prosecution of this defendant. His testimony before the grand jury was the same character of testimony as would have been delivered by any other witness.
Alexander Currie, District Attorney, of Hattiesburg, for the state.
The circumstances from which the guilt of the defendant is to be inferred may themselves be established by circumstantial evidence.
State v. Smith, 102 Iowa 656, 663; Bradshaw v. State, 17 Nebr. 147.
Circumstances taken separately may be wholly insufficient upon which to base an inference, and yet all together be absolutely convincing.
U. S. v. Searcy, 26 F. 435; U. S. v. Isla De Cuba F. Cas. 15447.
Argued orally by Earl Wingo, for appellant, and W. D. Conn, Jr., and Alexander Currie, for the state.
This is an appeal from a conviction of murder. The assignment of errors complains, among other things, of (1) the overruling of the motion to quash the indictment; (2) the refusal of the appellant's request for an instruction directing the jury to return a verdict of not guilty; (3) the granting of instructions for the appellee; and (4) the overruling of a motion for a new trial based on alleged...
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...into by defense counsel.' The record indicates that Dr. Philpot's mental difficulties were in 1959. Defendant cites Jones v. State, 165 Miss. 810, 146 So. 138 (1933), wherein the court held that a witness's mental condition would go to both his competency and his credibility and that eviden......