Turner v. State

• Decision Date: 05 November 1906
• Citation: 89 Miss. 621,42 So. 165
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: EDWARD TURNER v. THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

42 So. 165

89 Miss. 621

EDWARD TURNER v. THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 5, 1906

November 1906

FROM the circuit court of Sunflower county, HON. A. MCC. KIMBROUGH, Judge.

The appellant, Turner, a negro, was indicted and tried for and convicted of the murder of his mother, Amanda Turner; was sentenced to suffer death, and from the conviction and sentence appealed to the supreme court.

The conviction rested upon the testimony of a state's witness, Polly Howard, colored, as to an alleged dying declaration of the decedent, supported by incriminating circumstances detailed by other witnesses for the state. Polly Howard testified that she was with decedent when the dying declaration was made; that the declarant, at the time was unable to hold up her head; blood was running from her nostrils, her teeth were knocked out, her eyes mashed in, and her breast bone was broken; that declarant stated, having knowledge of impending death before her, that her son, the appellant, had, without provocation, beat declarant with a glass bottle, thereby inflicting the injuries from which she was suffering.

The state further showed by the testimony of a deputy sheriff who saw the decedent shortly before she made the dying declaration, that her head was beaten in, her mouth bleeding and she could hardly speak. The statement made by the dying woman, as detailed by the witness, Polly Howard, was, in the trial court, admitted in evidence, as her dying declaration over the objection of the appellant.

No evidence was offered by appellant. After conviction counsel for appellant made a motion for a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence. The affidavit accompanying the motion was to the effect that Amanda Turner, the decedent, in company with another woman, had been sent to affiant, a physician, by the sheriff, affiant being the health officer of the county, for medical treatment; that, being informed by the woman who accompanied decedent, that Amanda's son had rammed a bottle into her mouth and throat, he made a close physical examination of Amanda, but discovered no marks, cuts or bruises in her mouth, or throat, there being only a few small ulcers in her mouth, which might have been caused by a disordered stomach; that in order to reach affiant's office, situated on the second floor of a building in Indianola, Amanda Turner walked up the steps, and after being examined walked down the steps and away from the building that affiant saw Amanda's body shortly after her...