Webster v. State
| Decision Date | 23 December 1912 |
| Docket Number | 15,868 |
| Citation | 103 Miss. 259,60 So. 214 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | AMELIA WEBSTER v. STATE |
APPEAL from the circuit court of Lauderdale county, HON. J. L BUCKLEY, Judge.
Amelia Webster was convicted of unlawful retailing and appeals.
The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.
Reversed and remanded.
W. F Collins and Geo. H. Ethridge, for appellant.
We desire first to discuss the question as to the admission of the evidence of a plea of guilty in the mayor's court and the admission of the mayor's docket to show a conviction of a similar charge in the mayor's court. It is well settled in this state that the unsworn pleadings of the parties are not admissible in evidence. Meyer v Blackmore, 54 Miss. 570; Crump v. Guock, 40 Miss. 765; Co-operative Ins. Co. v. Lifton, 53 Miss. 1. It certainly would be a great hindrance to justice to permit a plea of guilty in one court to be offered in evidence on another trial in another court. Section 1762 of the Code has no reference to the facts in this phase of the case. That section, if constitutional, would only permit the introduction of offenses against the same authority that had not been punished, either acquited or convicted; and up to this time I have never heard of a court going so far as to hold that evidence of another conviction could be offered, nor that the facts of an offense, where it had been tried, could be offered in evidence. Of course the section merely intended to allow the state to produce evidence of a punishable offense and offer it to the jury. This must have been the section which influenced the trial judge in admitting the evidence to the jury. The facts in this case do not come within the exception to the rule excluding evidence of other offenses. The rule is well stated in King v. State, 66 Miss. 502, 6 So. 188, where the question is discussed. The rule is there stated as being a general rule, and is that in criminal cases evidence of a crime, other than the one with which the accused is charged and is being tried, is inadmissible; and it being doubtful whether such evidence is admissible, then such evidence should be excluded. Dabney v. State, 82 Miss. 252, 33 So. 973. In Whitlock v. State, 6 So. 237, in a burglary charge where separate and distinct offenses were offered in evidence, the case was reversed for this reason.
A person under the rulings in this case has to run the gauntlet of every day in the year for a period of two years; he is subject to be confronted with any witness in the Universe and is charged with any offense committed in the whole county. If section 1762 be constitutional then the clause of the Constitution requiring notice of the offense is vain words, "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." So far as any practical good is concerned he might just as well be brought into court blindfolded, gagged and bound. This section surely was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. "It is horrible in conception, iniquitous in outline and damnable in detail;" a piece of legislation that shields the habitual criminal from adequate punishment, and at the same time enables the malicious to crush the innocent. Its presence in the Code can only be accounted for on the theory that the mind of the legislature was so engrossed with the multitude of provisions in the closing days of the session that it had not time to deliberate. If it was not the existence of this section that caused the trial judge to admit this evidence of the plea of guilty, and the mayor's docket showing a conviction, it is difficult to see on what reasoning it was admitted. It was held in Collins v. State, 54 So. 666, that it was reversible error to admit evidence that the defendant kept a house of prostitution, when the defendant was being tried for selling intoxicating liquors. A case directly in point on the admitting the plea of guilty is Meadows v. Commonwealth, 31 Ky. Law Rep. 1159, 104 S.W. 954. This was a case where the defendant was indicted for creating and maintaining a nuisance in that the defendant wantonly and openly permitted persons to congregate at her house for the purpose of having sexual intercourse with her. It was held error to...
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... ... was trying to prejudice the minds of the jurors against the ... defendant with testimony, clearly without any probative value ... to the state ... Underhill ... on Criminal Evidence (3 Ed.), sec. 150, page 187; Cotton ... v. State, 17 So. 373; Webster v. State, 103 ... Miss. 359, 60 So. 214; Hardy v. State, 108 So. 727; ... Holt v. State, 29 So. 527, 528. [168 Miss. 125] ... There ... was no testimony which would even tend to demonstrate that ... the altercation in question arose from or was proximately ... traceable to the ... ...
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...It was very prejudicial to appellant to let the evidence of former convictions go to the jury, and this was fatal error.--Webster v. State, 103 Miss. 259. It true the court granted the following instruction to appellant: "The court instructs the jury for the defendant that proof of the firs......