Snowden v. State

• Citation: 66 Tenn. 482
• Parties: SIMON SNOWDEN v. THE STATE OF TENNESSEE.
• Decision Date: 30 April 1874
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

66 Tenn. 482

SIMON SNOWDEN

v.THE STATE OF TENNESSEE.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

April Term, 1874.

FROM SHELBY.

Appeal from the Circuit Court.

No brief appears for Snowden.

Attorney-General HEISKELL for the State.

Opinion by the court.

The prisoner was jointly presented by the grand jury of the Bartlett Circuit Court of Shelby county together with one John Wesley and one Sam Davy for larceny of two red steers and one red heifer.

At the December Term, 1871, the prisoner was put upon his trial. After the evidence was heard, and the argument was concluded, and after the jury had retired to consider of the case, they returned into court and reported that D. J. Davis, one of their number, was then, and had been since he was empanelled, laboring under an aberration of mind. Thereupon, the court having heard testimony on the point, and having examined the juror personally, and being satisfied that the juror was totally incapacitated to serve as a juror, directed that the panel be discharged, and the cause continued to the April Term.

To this action of the court the plaintiff excepted, and at the April Term puts in a plea embodying these facts.

What action was had upon the plea, or whether any action of the court at all was invoked upon it, the record nowhere disclosed. This, however, is a matter of no consequence, the practice of his honor in this case being fully warranted by the ruling of this court in The State v. Curtis, 5 Hum., 601, the only difference in the cases being that in the case cited the juror, as we infer was laboring under a bodily malady, while in the case in hand the juror was afflicted with a mental disorder.

It may be remarked that under our statute and decisions it is discretionary with the court to supply the place of the sick juror, and proceed to try the cause de novo, or to discharge the jury and continue the cause. See T. & S's Code, sec. 4028, and notes.

The next error assignd, however, by the prisoner is, we think, fatal to the verdict and judgment of conviction.

One W. B. Williamson, a witness for the State, was allowed by the court, over the prisoner's objection, to detail a confession or statement made by John Wesley to the witness in the prisoner's absence. In this confession Wesley stated that the prisoner and Sam Daly had agreed to furnish cattle to a butcher in Chelsea; that they agreed to steal cattle for the butcher; that the cattle stolen in this case were for the butcher, and that the prisoner and...