McCormick v. State

• Decision Date: 09 March 1931
• Docket Number: 29183
• Citation: 159 Miss. 610,132 So. 757
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: MCCORMICK v. STATE

132 So. 757

159 Miss. 610

MCCORMICK v. STATE

No. 29183

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 9, 1931

Division B

1. CRIMINAL LAW.

In prosecution for homicide, testimony showing circumstances and events immediately preceding and leading up to killing held admissible as part of res gestae.

2. CRIMINAL LAW.

Series of acts leading up to and helpful to correct understanding of main transaction are part of res gestae and admissible.

HON. W L. CRANFORD, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Jasper county, Second district, HON. W L. CRANFORD, Judge.

Catherine McCormick was convicted of a homicide, and she appeals. Reversed, and cause remanded.

Reversed and remanded.

J. M. Travis, of Meridian, for appellant.

If more than one crime was committed at the same time and the crimes were so connected and so related, that one of the crimes caused the other crime to be committed and was spontaneous happening about the same time and being a part or the cause of the crime committed, such testimony is admissible as a part of the res gestae.

State v. Simmons, 59 So. 975; State v. Blount, 50 So. 12; State v. High, 40 So. 438; Willes v. State, 65 So. 950; Oliver v. State, 20 So. 803; P. O. v. Lewis, 16 N.Y.S. 881; 136 N.Y. 633; Tennell v. State, 181 S.W. 458.

H. L. Finch, for appellant.

Defendant asked permission of the court to be permitted to show by the three witnesses offered by the state, all of whom were negroes, and had an intimate acquaintance and association with the deceased, that she was of violent reputation, that she was continually in difficulties and that she was dangerous, and habitually uses a knife with or without provocation, and that it was a known fact that the deceased was of a very violent temper and had a bad reputation for peace and violence. The exclusion of the testimony above referred to was palpable error on the part of the court.

It was proper for the jury to have heard the testimony of all the witnesses about all of the difficulty in which the deceased was in with Johnnie Dock, as well as with the accused, as it was all a part of the same transaction, and showed clearly the state of mind the accused was in, when she accosted the defendant.

Eugene B. Ethridge, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

It is a fundamental rule of evidence in the trials of criminal cases that where it is attempted to impeach the reputation of a party, it must be done by showing the general reputation in the community in which he lived, and that the answer to such question must be confined to either the word "good" or "bad," and that this must be preceded by the witness having first testified that he knows the general reputation in the community in which the party lives.

Cain v. State, 135 Miss. 982; Wilkerson v. State, 134 Miss. 853.

The law of this state is that in homicide cases it is not competent for the witness to express his opinion on the subject, it being for the jury to draw the conclusions from the testimony and to decide from all the facts deposed just what conclusion should be arrived at.

Cain v. State, 135 Miss. 892; Herring v. State, 122 Miss. 647; Johns v. State, 130 Miss. 803.

Argued orally by J. M. Travis, for appellant, and by Eugene B. Ethridge, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

OPINION

Griffith, J.

About dark on a Sunday evening a number of negroes were at a restaurant, and, according to the proof offered by appellant the deceased, a woman, got into an altercation with one of the men there, with the result that deceased cut, or attempted to cut, this man with a pocket-knife. The man ran, and deceased, still armed with the knife, followed, but was outdistanced;...