State v. Martin

• Decision Date: 11 July 1896
• Parties: STATE. v. MARTIN.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

47 S.C. 67
25 S.E. 113

STATE.
v.
MARTIN.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

July 11, 1896.

Homicide — Corpus Delicti — Circumstantial Evidence—Expert Witnesses—Instructions.

1. In a murder case, where the body of the deceased was burned and mutilated be-

[25 S.E. 114]

yond recognition, testimony that a piece of charred cloth, found among the ashes with the deceased, was like the cloth of which his trousers were made, and which he wore at the time of his disappearance, and that a slate pencil found there was identical with one carried by deceased, and known to be such by a certain indentation on the side, was competent evidence of the identity of the body.

2. The sufficiency of the evidence of identity was for the jury.

3. Where irrelevant testimony is immaterial and harmless, its admission affords no ground for a new trial.

4. Where a witness testified that he did not know deceased, who was named P., but that he saw a person called P., and gave the time, place, and persons accompanying the man called P., his testimony was admissible to corroborate other witnesses, who saw P. at the same time and place and with the same persons.

5. There was evidence that blood stains had been found in several places over the floor of the house in which defendant lived at the time of the alleged homicide, and that the floor had the appearance of having been scoured. A piece of board cut from the floor a year later, after defendant had moved from the house, and while it was occupied by another, was offered as a specimen of the stains. Held, that the exhibit was competent as a circumstance tending to show defendant's connection with the homicide.

6. The objection that expert witnesses based their opinions of a stated question upon a crude and insufficient analysis does not affect the admissibility of the evidence, but its sufficiency only..

7. Error cannot be predicated on an isolated sentence taken from the court's charge, but the whole text must be construed together.

Appeal from general sessions circuit court of Hampton county; Buchanan, Judge.

John Martin was convicted of murder, and appeals. Affirmed.

W. S. Tillinghast, for appellant.

Solicitor Bellinger, for the State.

JONES, J. The appellant was indicted for the murder of one Peter Polite; the jury found him guilty, with a recommendation to mercy; and he was, according to statute, sentenced to imprisonment for life. The proof of the corpus delicti was by circumstantial or presumptive evidence alone. No evidence was offered in behalf of the defendant The testimony for the state tended to show that on Sunday night before Christmas in 1894, Peter Polite, having in his pocket $40 or $45, his. savings from his labor that year, left the premises of John C. Davis, a few miles across the Savannah, in Georgia, where he had been engaged at work, and that same night arrived in Hampton county. His movements in Hampton county, in the neighborhood of Shirleys, were traced until about 11 o'clock on Tuesday, Christmas day, when he was last seen alive with the defendant, John Martin, going towards the house where defendant lived, on Mr. McKensie's place. He was described by witnesses as a small negro man, wearing a grey overcoat and dark striped pants. On the morning of the 26th of December...