Runnels v. State

• Decision Date: 02 November 1909
• Citation: Runnels v. State, 96 Miss. 92, 50 So. 499 (Miss. 1909)
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: THORNTON RUNNELS v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

50 So. 499

96 Miss. 92

THORNTON RUNNELS v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 2, 1909

October 1909

From the circuit court of, first district, Hinds county, HON WILEY H. POTTER, Judge.

Runnels the appellant, was indicted and tried for robbery, was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of three years, and appealed to the supreme court.

The principal assignment of error was predicated of the refusal of the court below to grant the sixth instruction requested by appellant. This instruction is quoted in the opinion.

Affirmed.

Wiley J. Croom and Robert P. Thompson, for appellant.

We contend that the court below committed fatal error, in refusing the sixth instruction asked by the appellant, and we are warranted in making this contention, under the decision of this court rendered in the case of Thompson v State, 83 Miss. 287, 35 So. 689, in which this court passing upon the refusal of the trial court, in that case to grant an instruction to the appellant, identical with the sixth instruction, said, "It has always been, is now, and we trust shall ever be, the law in criminal cases, that where there are two reasonable hypotheses arising out of and supported by the evidence, it is the duty of the jury to adopt the hypothesis consistent with innocence, even though the hypothesis of guilt be more probable." And this court reversed the judgment in the Thompson case, supra, because of the refusal of the trial court to grant said instruction.

The instructions granted to the appellant in the Thompson case on the law of reasonable doubt were much stronger than those granted to the appellant in the instant case, and yet this court reversed judgment in the Thompson case, because this sixth instruction was not given, wherefore it can not now be regarded in this case, that if error was committed, in refusing said instruction, it was cured by the trial court in granting other instructions to the appellant, announcing the law of reasonable doubt.

George Butler, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.

The instruction here in question is in almost the exact language of the instruction quoted in Thompson v. State, 83 Miss. 287, wherein it was said that where there are two reasonable hypotheses arising out of, and supported by the evidence, it is the duty of the jury to adopt the one showing innocence, though the hypothesis of guilt be more probable.

The instruction as tendered was erroneous and did not announce the correct legal principle. In almost every case that goes before a jury, there are two reasonable theories that arise out of, and are supported by the evidence. Thus in a homicide case, five witnesses may testify for the state that defendant shot deceased without excuse or justification, and at a time when deceased was making no hostile demonstration, and when defendant was in no real or apparent danger, etc. Three, or more witnesses may testify for defendant that at the time of the firing of the fatal shot the deceased was advancing on defendant with a deadly weapon, etc. Here we have a reasonable theory, arising out of the evidence, supporting a theory of guilt, and another reasonable theory, arising out of evidence, supporting a theory of innocence. In the case stated, the jury may believe beyond the shadow of a doubt the testimony for the state, but under the instruction they are bound, under their oaths, to return a verdict of not guilty. There is rarely before this court a case in which this, or some similar situation is not presented. The instruction commands an acquittal in each case.

There may, in any case, arise a reasonable theory of innocence without the existence of a reasonable doubt of guilt. In other words, the testimony may be reasonable, the theory...