Walker v. State
| Decision Date | 12 October 1925 |
| Docket Number | 25151 |
| Citation | 105 So. 497,140 Miss. 238 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | WALKER v. STATE. [*] |
1. HOMICIDE. No evidence of manslaughter.
Evidence held to present no element of manslaughter so as to require instruction defining it.
2 HOMICIDE. Threat by deceased against another inadmissible.
Previous threat by deceased against another than defendant held inadmissible.
3 HOMICIDE. Corpus delicti established by mutilated body.
Corpus delicti held sufficiently established by dead body found in road, with whole over eye, throat cut, and several cuts in neck.
4 HOMICIDE. Evidence of murder held sufficient.
Evidence held sufficient to sustain conviction of murder.
APPEAL from circuit court of Amite county, HON. R. L. CORBAN, Judge.
Isom Walker was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Affirmed.
J. S. McGuire, for appellant.
It is the contention of appellant that the court erred in refusing to grant the motion to exclude the evidence of the state and direct a verdict for the defendant, and also the refusal to grant a peremptory instruction, for the reason that the state absolutely failed to make out a case of murder against the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.
There is nothing in the evidence with which to contradict the testimony and theory of self-defense as pleaded by the defendant. In fact, the statement to the deputy made by the defendant when arrested, to search the body of the deceased Isaacs and that he would and thereon a pistol, bears out the theory presented by him.
There are no circumstances contradicting his admission and the only evidence to connect the defendant with the killing is his own statement that he acted in self-defense after being assaulted by the deceased. We are supported in our contention by rulings of the previous decisions of this court as follows: Houston v. State, 78 So. 182; Cumberland v. State, 70 So. 595.
It is further argued by the appellant that under the statement of facts and circumstances as adduced in this case, a manslaughter verdict should have been the extreme penalty allowed by the trial court. Williams v. State, 90 So. 705; Williams v. State, 98 So. 242.
Appellant seriously contends that the court erred and committed reversible error by refusing to grant the instruction asked for by the defendant in part 3 of the assignment of error and contends that the instruction referred to should have been granted. See, Stringfellow v. State, 59 Am. Dec. 247; Sam v. State, 33 Miss. 347; Pitts v. State, 43 Miss. 472; Jenkins v. State, 41 Miss. 582; Heard v. State, 59 Miss. 547.
Appellant contends that it was a reversible error to allow witness Bales to testify as to the admission of the defendant when it was not clearly shown under what circumstances the said admission was made. We seriously contend that the admission and statement were not made freely and voluntarily and should not have been admitted under the circumstances.
Appellant contends that the threats as made by the deceased Isaacs to Jesse Caston and the conversation showing the cause of said threats should have been admitted. Blalock v. State, 31 So. 105; Johnson v. State, 65 So. 218.
Especially do we contend that the evidence of Jesse Caston should have been admitted as it would tend to show who was the aggressor in the case in question. Blalock v. State, 31 So. 105.
F. S. Harmon, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.
This appellant went to the house of a Mr. Wilson the morning of the homicide and told this gentleman to phone the sheriff that a dead man was lying in the road about two or three hundred yards from his, the appellant's home. Witness Bales, responding to this phone call, found the deceased lying in the road with a bruise and cut over his eye and four or five cuts made with an ax on his neck. These cuts on the neck had well nigh severed the head from the body.
Mr. Wilson and his wife also telephoned E. L. Barron, a justice of the peace, and Mr. Barron came by the appellant's home and the appellant told him that when the sheriff got there for them to come and get him. After Deputy Sheriff Hazlewood arrived Messrs. Barron and Hazlewood arrested the appellant and he made a statement as to how the homicide occurred.
The case for the state rests entirely on the statement which these officers say this appellant made to them at that time. The appellant took the stand in his own defense, and insisted that he acted in self-defense. The fundamental question in this case is whether or not the state has proved the corpus delicti aliunde the statements of the accused. The latest case on this point is Floyd v. State, 103 So. 367. This case is also much like Houston v. State, 78 So. (1918) 182.
The record is short and we believe that no good purpose would be served by rehashing the variation between the testimony of the officers as to what this appellant said to them and the appellant's testimony on the stand. Boiled down to its last analysis, the state's case hinges on statements made by the appellant and the important question is the sufficiency of this testimony to sustain the conviction.
There is no merit in appellant's contention that the testimony of Jesse Caston was improperly excluded. This witness was permitted to testify to the fact that trouble existed between the appellant and deceased, but he stated that when he had attempted to settle this trouble in an interview with the deceased, he did not hear the deceased threaten this appellant, but that the deceased threatened him, the witness. The objection to the introduction of this threat was quite properly sustained, tho it is indicated quite clearly that if this witness had stated that he had heard the deceased threaten the life of the appellant such testimony would have been admitted.
In the light of the cases cited and the evidence in this case, we respectfully submit this case.
Defendant, Isom Walker, appellant here, was convicted of murder and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. We quote the following facts: On the morning of the homicide, the defendant went to the home of Mr. Wilson and requested that he telephone the sheriff that a dead man was lying in the road about two hundred or three hundred yards from appellant's home. The witness Bales responded to this call, and to this witness the defendant made the following statement:
Precisely the same statement was made to another witness, and the sheriff and the...
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Keeton v. State
...from criminal agency. Harris v. State, 155 Miss. 398, 124 So. 493; Walker v. State, 140 Miss. 238, 105 So. 497. If what was said in the Walker case be true, then certainly finding of these parts of a human body, which were identified by the prisoner as parts of her mother's body, and couple......
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...So.2d 251, 258 (Miss.1967). Likewise, "[t]hreats made by deceased against persons other than accused are inadmissible." Walker v. State, 140 Miss. 238, 105 So. 497 (1925). Accordingly, evidence of specific acts of the deceased toward third parties are not admissible to show bad character of......
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