Prewitt v. State

• Decision Date: 17 March 1930
• Docket Number: 28465
• Citation: 156 Miss. 731,126 So. 824
• Parties: PREWITT v. STATE
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

126 So. 824

156 Miss. 731

PREWITT v. STATE

No. 28465

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 17, 1930

Division B

APPEAL from circuit court of Monroe county HON. C. P. LONG, Judge.

Zack Prewitt was convicted of manslaughter, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded for a new trial.

Judgment reversed and remanded.

J. M Coleman and Leftwich & Tubb, all of Aberdeen, for appellant.

In further explanation of the flight of the appellant, the appellant's counsel, in the absence of the jury attempted to prove a very ugly threat on the part of George Walton, Jr., the father of the deceased, against the appellant.

It was this threat of George Walton, Sr., plainly that caused the negro boy to run away and hide and it was thoroughly competent, as we submit, to explain his flight and his staying in hiding for two or three days and should have been admitted. We don't pretend to dispute that flight may be shown as proof of conscious guilt but in this particular instance we think the court committed reversible error when he refused to allow this vicious and dreadful threat on the part of George Walton, Sr., the father, to the extent to quote the language used "We are going to tear the damn house down and kill him."

Forrest B. Jackson, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

The testimony of Willie Gordon as to threats made by father of deceased against appellant in explanation of flight appears in the record, and there was a rule of the court that the evidence at that time was incompetent. We find, however, elsewhere in the record, that the accused made an explanation of his flight, and any error that was committed by the court in refusing to allow the introduction of the testimony of Willie Gordon is cured by the introduction of the testimony of the accused.

McCoy v. State, 91 Miss. 257, 44 So. 814.

OPINION

Griffith, J.

Appellant was indicted on a charge of murder, was convicted of manslaughter, and appeals, assigning many grounds of error, the principal of which is as follows:

The state introduced the sheriff as a witness, showed by him, and apparently attached much weight to the fact, that after the homicide the appellant had taken flight, and that two days elapsed before the officers could locate him. He was then found at the home of a sister three or four miles from the court-house; it being further shown that the accused had sent word to the sheriff of his whereabouts, with a request that the sheriff come and get him, and that it was by this message that the sheriff obtained knowledge where to find him. In explanation of his apparent flight, appellant introduced and offered to prove by the witness Willie Gordan, to state the same in brief, that she is the sister of appellant, and that immediately after the shooting she met George Waldon, the father of the deceased, and that the father sad, referring to appellant, that "he had better get away from here," and that "We are going to tear the damn house down and kill him," that the witness then ran home and told her brother that "George Waldon and a crowd said they were going to kill you and you had better get away from here," and that appellant immediately fled. Upon objection to this testimony, the court refused to receive it. The authorities, however, as we find, are in complete accord that such a refusal is error.

"After evidence of flight has been introduced, evidence offered by accused which has some tendency to explain his flight must be received. Any fact is admissible in his behalf which shows that the reasons and motives for...