Wilkerson v. State

• Decision Date: 23 February 1914
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: JOHN WILKERSON v. STATE

64 So. 420

106 Miss. 633

JOHN WILKERSON v. STATE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 23, 1914

October 1913

APPEAL from the circuit court of Marshall county, HON. H. F. MAHON Judge.

John Wilkerson was convicted of rape and appeals.

This is an appeal from a conviction of rape. Both appellant and the prosecutrix were negroes; the latter being only twelve years of age, which is the age of consent. The prosecutrix testifying as a witness for the state, stated that appellant ravished her by force. The appellant testified that he met the girl by appointment for the purpose of indulging in sexual intercourse, and that they went together to a ditch for that purpose, but that before the act was committed, the girl's mother was discovered some distance away, and the appellant ran off. There was a verdict of guilty, and the death sentence imposed.

Reversed and remanded.

J. C Totten, for appellant.

We submit, that the testimony of the girl should be "scrutinized with caution, and where there is much in the facts and circumstances in evidence to discredit her testimony, it is not sufficient to sustain a verdict of guilty." Monroe v. State, 71 Miss. 198; Rawls v. State, 62 So. 420.

It is reversible error not to have allowed appellant to prove the reputation of the girl for chastity. It has always been allowed in order that the jury might better judge whether there was consent or not.

Geo. H. Ethridge, assistant attorney-general, for the state.

The law books announce that the uncorroborated evidence of a female will support a conviction unless it is manifestly on its face inconsistent with consistent facts in the case.

The counsel for appellant cited Rawls v. State, 62 So. 420, and Monroe v. State, 71 Miss. 198, as showing that the evidence is not sufficient to convict. In the Rawls case there was strong evidence tending to show that the father of the girl in that case was the guilty party and escaped punishment. Also the defendant as a general rule can bring some member of his family and prove whatever is needful for his defense. Whenever the testimony of the state would warrant a conviction if believed and the jury responds and convicts, the conviction should stand no matter what the witnesses may testify to, for the defendant. The credibility of the witness is entirely for the jury and they are the sole judges of the weight and value that should be given testimony.

In the Monroe case, 71 Miss., the court expressly said that a conviction may be had on the uncorroborated testimony of the female, but that her testimony should be scrutinized and if there is much to contradict her testimony it is not sufficient to sustain a conviction: I find no fault with the law thus announced but I feel compelled to protest against its application to the facts as stated in the official report of that case. Perhaps the full facts are not stated and perhaps for this reason this case as reported misleads in such cases. The true rule in all cases tried by a jury is that if the theory of the state is supported by evidence, of at least one person, and the jury accepts such evidence as being true, any court is bound by the finding of the jury. See Brown v. State, 60 So. 726. The jury has the sole right to say whose testimony they will believe, and neither the court below nor this court has the right to substitute their individual judgment for the judgment of the jury. Jackson v. State, 63 So. 269. It is within the knowledge of all men that the physical conditions and the appearance of a witness while testifying, sheds a luminous light on his veracity and credibility. It is impossible to get this light from the printed page. Wherever the female ravished makes out a case and the jury accepts her version of the case, the court should accept the jury's verdict as final,...