Watson v. State
| Decision Date | 13 December 1909 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | ALCORN WATSON v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI |
October 1909
FROM the circuit court of Warren county, HON. JOHN N. BUSH, Judge.
Watson appellant, was indicted and tried for and convicted of murder, sentenced to the penitentiary for life, and appealed to the supreme court. The opinion of the court states the facts upon which the decision turned.
Reversed.
Anderson Voller & Foster and R. L. C. Barrett, for appellant.
The unreasonableness of the witness Boykin's testimony is so clearly shown that it ought to have fallen heavily of its own weight before the jury of twelve honest, unbiased, and unprejudiced jurors, but such was not the case. It was received and accepted, notwithstanding the fact that it was clearly and positively shown that Boykin testified to a far different state of facts before the coroner's jury of inquest that investigated the killing the morning following its occurrence.
The court below erred in not granting a new trial upon the newly discovered evidence of Leota Johnson, which was offered at the hearing of the motion.
The affidavits of the defendant and of both counsel that represented him, show that due diligence was used to procure evidence for his defense, and that no one knew or could have known of the witness, Leota Johnson, and they were not advised in any way that she had any knowledge of the facts set out in the affidavit filed as an exhibit to the motion for a new trial.
Her testimony is not merely corroborative, cumulative, nor does it merely tend to impeach other witnesses, for the defense. The benefit of this testimony is well calculated, if anything would, to change the result of the former trial.
Wiley J. Croom, on the same side.
In view of the character of the witnesses, and the class in which these witnesses are placed by the law, the appellant was entitled to the fourth instruction, and the refusal by the court to grant the same worked irreparable injury to the appellant. See Vails v. State, 94 Miss. 365, 48 So 725, in which an instruction similar to that here in question, and there given on behalf of the state, in that case was attacked by the defendant. This court there said "there was not only no reversible error, but no error at all, in giving the fourth instruction for the state." Now in this case the instructions refused to defendant, were drawn along the line of the instruction cited, and instruction number four in this case, is identical with instruction number four in the Vails' case, which this court there said was correct.
George Butler, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.
It is seriously contended by appell...
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