Neal v. State
| Decision Date | 12 February 1912 |
| Citation | 57 So. 419,101 Miss. 122 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | GRANT NEAL v. STATE |
October 1911
APPEAL from the circuit court of Yalobusha county, HON. N. A TAYLOR, Judge.
Grant Neal was convicted of assault and battery with intent to kill and appeals.
The facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion of the court.
Case reversed and remanded.
Creekmore & Stone, for appellant.
We commend the court to that greatest of all books of its kind Wigmore on Evidence, sections 977 to 989, inclusive. Here it is shown, in a masterly discussion of character from conduct and especially from particular acts, that the questions of the district attorney in the case at bar would not have been admitted in any jurisdiction in the country. The reasoning is so clear and forecful, and accords so perfectly with the feelings of common humanity and justice, that it seems that the courts would not be called upon to reiterate the docttrine that particular acts of moral delinquency could not be inquired about. Especially would this seem to be the case in a state like ours, where a plain statute limits the inquiry to "conviction of crime," and uses proof of his conviction merely, against his credibility as witness. Even after conviction had been inquired about in the case at bar, and shown by complete evidence, these matters would have to have been preceded by a question to the appellant on cross-examination, followed by a denial of the conviction by the appellant. Our position on this question is especially upheld by the decision of Justice Calhoun in the recent case of Dan Cook v. State, in discussing section 1746 of the Code of 1892, of which section 1923 is an exact copy. We quote from Judge Calhoun's opinion, 38 So., p. 112: "That section simply permits witnesses to be interrogated as to whether they had been convicted of any offense--the purpose being, of course, to go to their credibility--and the statute allows their statement to be contradicted; but it is nowhere provided by the law, even upon this matter of credibility, that testimony might be introduced as to the conviction of a witness unless the witness had first denied it."
In addition to the above we have a case in the Mississippi court which is exactly in point on this assignment of error, and covers the ground as thoroughly as it is possible. We refer to the case of Kearney v. State, 68 Miss. 223, 8 So. 292.
Frank Johnston, assistant attor...
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Hartfield v. State
...1, page 269; Bird v. United States, 180 U.S. 356, 21 S.Ct. 403, 45 L.Ed. 570; Kearney v. State, 68 Miss. 233, 8 So. 292; and Neal v. State, 101 Miss. 122, 57 So. 419. If appellant, Hartfield, had offered himself as a witness, which he did not do, then proof of the fact that he had been prev......
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