Strickland v. State

• Decision Date: 10 November 1902
• Citation: 81 Miss. 134,32 So. 921
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: CHARLES STRICKLAND v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

32 So. 921

81 Miss. 134

CHARLES STRICKLAND v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 10, 1902

FROM the circuit court of Marshall county. HON. PERRIN H. LOWREY Judge.

Strickland the appellant, was indicted, tried, and convicted in the court below for the murder of one Cal Thompson; sentenced to death and appealed to the supreme court. The facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion of the court.

Reversed and remanded.

L. A Smith, attorney, for appellant.

Defendant was in his own home and was unlawfully assaulted therein. Section 23 of the state constitution provides that the "people shall be secure in their homes and possessions from unreasonable seizure and search; and no warrant shall be issued without probable cause, Supported by oath or affirmation, specially designating the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized." There was not a scintilla of evidence before the jury that the persons who, in the dead of night, demanded an entrance to the appellant's home had a warrant for his arrest or for the search of the premises where he lived. Aside from the violation of the section of the constitution referred to there are lacking some of the primary elements of arrest. If all the evidence offered by the state in this case were granted to be true, it could not support a verdict of murder. The evidence is undisputed that defendant did not know these men personally nor that they were officers of the law.

The court erred in granting the charges given the state. They are entirely unwarranted by the evidence. In Hawthorne v. State, 58 Miss. 778, this court says that all instructions are to be construed together, and where the court commits an error prejudicial to the accused a conviction will be set aside.

How can the charge interpreting the action of this defendant as deliberate design to affect the death of the deceased be consistent with the charge interpreting his action as a reckless commission of an act eminently dangerous to other, and evincing a depraved heart, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to affect the death of any particular person?

Monroe McClurg, attorney-general, for appellee.

[The brief of the attorney-general is lost from the files, hence the reporter is unable to give the points made.]

OPINION

TERRAL, J.

The appellant being convicted of murder, and being sentenced to be hanged, assigns error in the proceedings against him.

Four persons came to his home somewhat late at night, two of them armed, declaring they came to arrest him, and upon seeing him, demanded that he throw up his hands, when he fired...