Nalls v. State
| Decision Date | 13 March 1922 |
| Docket Number | 22274 |
| Citation | 128 Miss. 277,90 So. 892 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | NALLS v. STATE |
1. CRIMINAL LAW. Circumstantial evidence to warrant conviction must exclude every other reasonable hypothesis than that of guilt.
A conviction may be had on circumstantial evidence alone when by it guilt is proved 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.
2 HOMICIDE. Evidence held not to sustain conviction.
In this case, where one was convicted of murder upon circumstantial testimony, the facts are held insufficient to support such conviction.
APPEAL from circuit court of Holmes county, HON. S. F. DAVIS, Judge.
Sam Nalls was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Reversed, and defendant discharged.
Judgment reversed and appellant discharged.
Holmes & Williams and G. H. McMorrough, for appellant.
D. C Enochs, assistant attorney-general for the state.
The appellant, Sam Nalls, was convicted of the murder of one John Wesley, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. From which judgment this appeal is prosecuted.
Both the appellant and deceased are negroes. The testimony relating to the killing is circumstantial. John Wesley, the deceased, was shot with a pistol in the town of Ebenezer about 7:30 o'clock at night, dying from these wounds a few hours afterwards. The deceased was a cook in a road camp whose headquarters were about a quarter of a mile north of the town of Ebenezer. He was last seen by the white man for whom he cooked at about 7 o'clock. At the request of his employer he had prepared some hot coffee for a veterinary surgeon who was to visit the camp to see a sick mule. Immediately after preparing the coffee he left the camp for town. He was shot between fifteen and thirty minutes after leaving the camp.
The appellant, Sam Nalls, was seen in two stores in the town of Ebenezer before these stores closed up, one about 6:30 and one about 7 o'clock that night. He was wearing a blue serge suit of clothes and a large black slouch hat. Several people who were in the last store to close heard the shooting variously estimated at between ten and thirty minutes after the closing of the store.
A negro woman testified that she met the deceased, John Wesley, a short distance north of one of these stores; she was going north, and Wesley was going south; that a short time after passing deceased she met a man going in the same direction as deceased, and a short distance behind him; that this man crouched up against the fence. She testified that she recognized this man, and that it was the appellant; that a few moments after passing the appellant she heard the shots fired. She testified first on the trial that she passed a man a short distance after passing the deceased, but on further examination she testified that this man was the appellant. She was impeached by three negro witnesses, who testified that she had told them that she was unable to identify this second man.
The deceased after being shot went to the house of a negro woman, and stated to her that he was dying; that he had been shot to death. To this woman, a physician, and another white man he made a dying declaration. The declarations made to each of these witnesses were practically the same, but that to Dr. Lucas was more complete, and we take the substance of this declaration from that testimony. He was absolutely rational when this statement was made. He told the doctor that he was shot in two places in his stomach. The doctor asked him if he knew who shot him, and he said, "Yes, sir, it was nobody but " naming a white man for whom this negro had been working for several months. He then told him in detail about having prepared coffee for the veterinary surgeon, and that he then got his supper and put it in a bucket and walked down toward Edna Mayberry's; that in a few minutes he heard somebody walking rapidly behind him; that when he caught up with deceased, deceased turned and faced him, and as he did this the man began to shoot; that he then stated, calling the man Mr. (his first name) "don't shoot me!" and then he ran. The doctor asked him what this man had against him, and he said, "Nothing in the world, unless he thought he had been stealing something from his premises;" that they had never had a cross word; that he did not know why he wanted to shoot him. The doctor says that the deceased's whole mind seemed to have been upon the subject of why this man wanted to shoot him; that when he was filling up with blood and was suffering terribly he said, "I don't see what Mr. wanted to shoot me for."
The testimony shows that the deceased knew the man he thought shot him very well. And the testimony further shows that they were very close together when he was shot. The next...
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Fisher v. State
... ... calculated to mislead the jury. Lee v. State, 124 ... Miss. 398. The court erred in refusing instruction number 5 ... asked for and refused by the court. Circumstantial evidence ... must exclude every other hypothesis. Hogan v. State, ... 127 Miss. 407, 90 So. 99; Nalls v. State, 128 Miss ... 277, 990 So. 892; Sorrells v. State, 130 Miss. 300, ... 94 So. 209; Irving v. State, 100 Miss. 208. These ... same authorities hold good for instruction 6. The court erred ... in refusing instruction number 7. Thompson v. State, ... 83 Miss. 287, 35 So. 689 ... ...
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