Taylor v. State

• Decision Date: 03 November 1930
• Docket Number: 28020
• Citation: 130 So. 502,158 Miss. 505
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: TAYLOR v. STATE

130 So. 502

158 Miss. 505

TAYLOR v. STATE

No. 28020

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 3, 1930

Division B

1. CRIMINAL LAW. Voluntary confession is admissible in homicide prosecution.

It is not error for the court to admit a confession voluntarily made in a prosecution for homicide.

2. CRIMINAL LAW. Modification of requested incorrect instruction to make it correctly state law is not error.

It is not error to modify an instruction which is incorrect as requested so as to make it a correct statement of the law.

3. CRIMINAL LAW. Refusing instruction relating to duty to acquit in case of reasonable doubt of guilt held not error, where subject was covered by instruction given.

Where the court gives a proper instruction of the law as to the degree of the proof required in cases depending upon circumstantial evidence, in which the jury are informed that if there is a reasonable hypothesis consistent with the innocence of the defendant they must return a verdict of not guilty, it is not error to refuse another instruction conveying the same idea clothed in different words and phraseology.

4 HOMICIDE.

Evidence held sufficient to sustain conviction for murder.

5 HOMICIDE.

One is not authorized to take life of another person at command of third person, whether he is in fear of latter or not.

HON. W A. ALCORN, JR., Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Coahoma county, HON. W. A. ALCORN, JR., Judge.

Henry Taylor was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

Cutrer & Smith, Brewer & Brewer and Vincent J. Brocato, all of Clarksdale, for appellant.

The court erred in permitting the witnesses, R. A. Frazier, to testify to an alleged admission and confession purported to have been uttered by the appellant, Henry Taylor.

The court erred in permitting testimony of the acts and declarations of Percy Washington, co-indictee, over the objection of appellant in the absence of proof of any conspiracy between the said Percy Washington and the appellant.

Conspiracies must be clearly proven and are never to be presumed.

Mere accidental meetings do not constitute a conspiracy and in the case of Harper v. State of Mississippi, 83 Miss. 402, our court said mere silence or consent of a party bystander would not constitute an accessory before the fact.

Harper v. State, 83 Miss. 402; Crawford v. State, 133 Miss. 147; Browning v. State, 30 Miss. 656; Gilliam v. State, 62 Miss. 547; Osborne v. State, 55 So. 52.

Edwin R. Holmes, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

Appellant confessed that he committed the crime and whether Percy Washington made him take the Winchester when he took the thirty cents from appellant or whether he took the Winchester from Percy Washington is of no consequence here, as the confession was made freely and voluntarily without threat or promise or hope or reward and after appellant had been warned that whatever he said might be used against him.

Stubbs v. State, 148 Miss. 764; Brown v. State, 142 Miss. 335, 107 So. 373; Lee v. State, 137 Miss. 329, 102 So. 296; Ellis v. State, 65 Miss. 44, 3 So. 188.

The refusal of a correct instruction is not error where the same point of law set forth in such instruction was fully covered by other instructions granted.

Frazier v. State, 141 Miss. 18; Stubblefield v. State, 142 Miss. 787; Cook v. State, 417 So. 344; Walton v. State, 115 So. 215.

OPINION

Ethridge, P. J.

Henry Taylor was indicted, tried, and convicted for the murder of Lynn Coleman in the Second district of Coahoma county, Mississippi.

The evidence relied upon for conviction is that on a certain day Henry Taylor, in company with Coleman, and others, went to Jonestown, Mississippi, and from there to a negro house situated in the said town, where a number of men, including the defendant, engaged in a game of craps. After playing awhile, the defendant stated that he was broke and left the room in which the game was being carried on. He went into another room where a shotgun was, which shotgun had been fired earlier in the day on some kind of wager between some of the parties at the crap game, and when he returned to the room where the game was in progress he threw the gun in the direction of the players and ordered them to leave the money they had won from him. Two of the negroes bolted through a window, one of them being Percy Washington who was jointly indicted with the appellant. The players seemed to leave the money, and Coleman and others soon left the house and proceeded in the direction of their home. It was night, but the moon was shining hazily, there being some clouds, and after Coleman and two others who were in the car driven by Coleman had proceeded down the road they met the defendant Taylor, and one of the occupants of the car said: "Slow down, let's take him home." Coleman had his head stuck out of the window on the side the steering wheel was on, looking in front, as it was muddy and the windshield seemed to have been bespattered. Just after they passed the defendant two shots were filed, Coleman being at the time slowing down the car, and Coleman was killed by one of the shots. The occupants of the car after the killing of Coleman "sent for the law," and officers came and arrested the appellant. When first arrested appellant stated that Percy Washington did the killing, but the officers carried him to the place where Percy Washington lived and he changed his statement. He was then placed in jail and made a free and voluntary statement, according to the officers in charge, in which he stated that Percy Washington came up with him armed with a Winchester and ordered him to throw down the shotgun, which he did; that when he threw the gun down Percy Washington then handed him the Winchester and commanded him to kill Lynn Coleman, driver of the car; and that he did kill him because compelled through fear to do so.

There were several witnesses who heard the shooting, two shots...