Waycaster v. State

• Decision Date: 13 March 1939
• Docket Number: 33503
• Citation: 185 Miss. 25,187 So. 205
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: WAYCASTER v. STATE

187 So. 205

185 Miss. 25

WAYCASTER v. STATE

No. 33503

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 13, 1939

APPEAL from the circuit court of Quitman county HON. WM. A. ALCORN Judge.

L. R Waycaster was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded.

T. N Gore and L. Q. Strong, of Marks, and A. C. Campbell, of Tutwiler, for appellant.

By the weight of authority, a non-expert witness who had had adequate means of becoming acquainted with the mental state of a person whose sanity is in issue may give his opinion upon the question whether such person was insane at the time of a specific occurrence which is also in evidence. The non-expert may not state his present opinion as distinguished from the opinion he had or the impression made upon his mind at the time of the occurrence observed. He must state the facts first, and then on this evidence he may express his opinion or impression formed at the time as to the sanity of the accused. Though, the opinion of a non-expert witness is in its effect the opinion as to the sanity of the accused at a particular time, he is not usually permitted to state his opinion in that shape. All that he is permitted to do, after he had described the facts upon which the opinion is based, is to state whether in his opinion on the facts which he testified to the conduct of the accused was rational or irrational. When defendant offers testimony touching upon insanity of deceased the state may offer non-expert evidence in rebuttal.

Underhill's Criminal Evidence (3 Ed.), page 374, sec. 263, and note 62.

The opinion of a non-expert witness as to the sanity or insanity of the defendant in an indictment, at the time of the commission of the offense charged, is competent evidence when accompanied by a statement of the facts on which it is based, and when the witness has had such acquaintance or opportunity of observation as is likely to make his opinion valuable.

Wood v. State, 58 Miss. 741; Wharton on Evidence, pages 451, 452, sec. 451.

No rule can be laid down as regards the amount of knowledge which the non-expert witness must possess. The weight the opinion shall have is for the jury alone.

Underhill's Criminal Evidence, (3 Ed.), page 376, sec. 264; Reed v. State, 62 Miss. 405.

A non-expert witness who had had opportunities of knowing and observing the conversation, conduct, and manners of a person whose sanity is in question, may depose, not only to particular facts, but to his opinion or belief, formed from such actual observation, as to the sanity or insanity of such person.

Wood v. State, 58 Miss. 741; 2 Taylor on Evidence, sec. 1416; 1 Greenl. Ev. (14 Ed.), sec. 440, note a; 1 Whart. Ev., sec. 451; 30 C. J. 220-221, sec. 451; Garner v. State, 112 Miss. 317, 73 So. 50; 16. C. J. 751-752, sec. 1540; Bishop v. State, 96 Miss. 846, 52 So. 21; Bacot v. State, 96 Miss. 125, 50 So. 500; Cunningham v. State, 56 Miss. 269.

The record in the case at bar shows that shortly before the state rested and closed its case in chief, and before the defense had offered any testimony whatever touching the appellant's insanity, the District Attorney himself admitted that enough testimony had been elicited from the state's own witnesses on cross examination "to lend color to an insanity plea." This court held in the Cunningham case that the moment any evidence comes to light in a criminal trial, either from the state's witnesses or from defense witnesses, that even "suggests" the insanity of the defendant, the state must then assume the burden, the burden it already had, of establishing the defendant's sanity beyond all reasonable doubt; and in the case at bar, we submit, the state did not even attempt to meet this burden.

Grissom v. State, 62 Miss. 167.

It has become a maxim of the law that in cases where insanity is relied upon as a defense every act of the party's life is relevant to the issue.

Howard v. State, 172. Ala. 402, 55 So. 255, 34 L. R. A. (N. S.) 990; Wright v. Tatham, Clark & F. 670; 1 Greenl. on Ev. (16 Ed.), page 58; Brothers v. State, 183 So. 433; Underhill on Criminal Evidence (3 Ed.), pages 261 and 369.

We submit that the trial court's action in sustaining the objection of the state's attorney to the testimony of Carlton Waycaster as to the appellant's mental condition immediately after the shooting was grevious and reversible error. The same error was made, and is here urged, as to the trial court's refusing the witness Louise Waycaster to testify as to her father's mental condition immediately after the shooting. This testimony was, in our opinion, perfectly admissible; was pertinent to the issue of the appellant's sanity or insanity, and should have been permitted to go to the jury.

Underhill's Criminal Evidence, sec. 261.

Where the defense is insanity, general or partial, the door is thrown wide open for the admission of evidence; every act of the party's life is relevant to the issue and admissible in evidence.

1 Wigmore on Evidence, sec. 228; State v. Jones, 50 N.H. 369, 9 Am. Rep. 242; Elmore v. State, 143 Miss. 318, 108 So. 22; Smith v. State, 95 Miss. 786, 49 So. 945, 27 L. R. A. (N. S.) 461, Ann. Cas. 1912A 23; Wallace v. State, 143 Miss. 438, 108 So. 810; Nelson v. State, 129 Miss. 288, 92 So. 66; Weatherford v. State, 143 So. 853; Winchester v. State, 142 So. 454; Bacot v. State, 96 Miss. 125, 50 So. 500; Ford v. State, 73 Miss. 734, 19 So. 665; Brock v. State, 92 Miss. 712, 46 So. 67; Bishop v. State, 96 Miss. 846, 52 So. 21.

We submit that this appellant has not been accorded that fair and impartial trial guaranteed to him by the Constitution and laws of this state as construed by this court. We again remind this court that Chief Justice Whitfield said, in reversing the case of Bishop v. State, supra, where insanity was the sole defense, and where the testimony of only one witness was offered touching this point, and his testimony excluded, in the latter part of the opinion, to-wit: "It is far wiser, therefore, on the part of the circuit judges, in cases so peculiarly horrible, to give the defendant all latitude the law allows, rather than to restrict him unduly and too narrowly in the introduction of competent testimony.

W. D. Conn, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.

In Eatman v. State, 169 Miss. 295, 153 So. 381, this court said: "In this state, as generally in the several states, the rule of law is that the test of criminal responsibility is the ability of the accused, at the time he committed the act, to realize and appreciate the nature and quality thereof--his ability to distinguish right and wrong."

Taking the testimony of Carlton Waycaster in its strongest light in favor of the defendant, it boils down to the proposition that he thought that there were times during the few months preceding the homicide that his father did not know right from wrong. None of this testimony related to the time of the killing itself. In other words, at most by this witness it was shown that his father may have, at times, been temporarily insane. We submit that this evidence falls far short of showing that the defendant was insane (in legal contemplation) at the time of the homicide.

Ford v. State, 73 Miss. 734, 19 So. 665, 35 L. R. A. 117.

Under the rule of the Eatman case, supra, which merely reaffirmed the well established doctrine of the law on this state, it was proper for the court to sustain this motion to exclude.

Pullen v. State, 175 Miss. 810, 168 So. 69.

Without arguing the reasonableness of the motive, we content ourselves with the observation that motive is no indispensable element of murder and, consequently, it would make little, if any, difference whether a motive were shown or not.

Johnson v. State, 140 Miss. 889, 105 So. 742; Buckler v. State, 157 So. 353; Motley v. Smith, 159 So. 553; Pullen v. State, 175 Miss. 810, 168 So. 69.

Since there was never any showing that at the time of the homicide the appellant did not know right from wrong, it appears that appellant's attitude after the killing would have thrown no further light on that condition. It is not unusual to find an accused upset mentally after the homicide itself. Such homicide would certainly not act as a sedative for the nerves.

The chief ground relied on for a reversal of this conviction was the action of the court in excluding all of defendant's testimony which had to do with his mental condition. None of this evidence had the effect of showing that the defendant did not know right from wrong at the time of the killing an hence it was proper for the court to remove this evidence from the consideration of the jury in accordance with the rule laid down in the Eatman case herein referred to. It was not necessary for the state to show a motive for this killing and since there is nothing for the court to review in respect to the alleged errors in connection with the examination of Carlton and Louise Waycaster, we submit that this conviction should be affirmed and a new date fixed by this court for the execution.

Argued orally by A. C. Campbell, and T. N. Gore, for appellant and by W. D. Conn, Jr., for the state.

OPINION

McGehee, J.

The appellant, L. R. Waycaster, was tried and convicted in the Circuit Court of Quitman County on the charge of having murdered Mrs. Fay Ferguson, and was sentenced to be hanged. The testimony shows without conflict that he shot and killed the deceased without any real or pretended cause or provocation. The only defense interposed was the plea of insanity. The testimony both for the State and for the defense disclosed that the appellant's state of mind had been abnormal during the last few months immediately prior to the killing. However, all of the evidence relating to the issue of insanity was...