Wilkinson v. State

• Decision Date: 12 April 1900
• Citation: 77 Miss. 705,27 So. 639
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: LENA WILKINSON v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

27 So. 639

77 Miss. 705

LENA WILKINSON v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 12, 1900

March 1900

FROM the circuit court of Lincoln county, HON. ROBERT POWELL Judge.

Lena Wilkinson was indicted for infanticide. She was tried convicted and appealed to the supreme court. The nature of the contentions is apparent from the opinion of the court.

Affirmed.

A. C. McNair, for appellant.

The testimony of Butler was admitted on the supposition that it was a confession that the appellant killed the children with a knife, and as evidencing that fact. As a confession, this testimony was inadmissible, because, first, there is no proof of the corpus delicti, that the children were ever alive, or that they carne to their death by violence, and, second, the confession was not a voluntary one. It was induced by the statement that it would better for defendant to produce the knife, and that if she did so nothing would be done with her. Garrard v. State, 50 Miss. 147; Simmons v. State, 61 Miss. 243; Draughan v. State, 76 Miss. 574; 1 Greenleaf on Evidence, sec. 110.

The corpus delicti was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The corpus delicti is always made up of two elements: first, of the fact that a certain result has been produced; second, that some one is criminally responsible for the result. In the case of felonious homicide it consists of two substantial, fundamental facts: first, the fact of death; second, of criminal agency as the cause of death. The first of these constituents is always required to be proved by either direct testimony, or by presumptive evidence of the strongest, most cogent and irresistible kind. Pitts v. State, 43 Miss. 472; People v. Palmer, 4 Am. St. Rep., 423; 7 Am. & Eng. Enc. L. (2d ed.), 863.

There is no proof that the children, or either of them, ever lived. On the contrary, the testimony of the woman--and it is uncontradicted--is that they were never alive.

The indictment, charges the murder of two human beings in one count, and is bad for duplicity. Two or more distinct offenses should in no instance be joined in one count of an indictment. 4 Am. & Eng. Enc. L., 755; Miller v. State, 5 How. (Miss.), 250; Clark's Cr. Pr., 279, and authorities referred to in note 1.

The persons charged to have been killed are not named; no reason is given for the failure to name them. They are not averred not to have been named, nor is it charged that their names were unknown. They are not accurately described; their ages are not given. In short, the indictment is so fatally defective in this regard as to be insufficient to support the verdict. The judgment should be arrested.

Monroe McClurg, attorney-general, for appellee.

The court has for fifty years, while condemning the joinder of two distinct offenses in the same indictment as bad practice, steadfastly refused to hold that a conviction should be reversed because thereof, especially where advantage was not sought to be taken of it before verdict. In Roberts' case, infra, it is not only seriously questioned, but strongly intimated that after the verdict it is too late to raise the objection. A long line of unbroken decisions show the unquestioned rule on that subject in this state. Wash v. State, 22 Miss. (1850), 120; Sarah v. State, 28 Miss. (1854), 267; Strawhern v. Grizzle, 37 Miss. (1855), 422; George v. State, 39 Miss. (1860), 570; Riley v. State, 43 Miss. (1870), 397; Teat v. State, 53 Miss. (1876), 439; Roberts v. State, 55 Miss. (1877), 491; Smith v. State, 57 Miss. (1880), 822; Harris v. State, 61 Miss. (1883), 304; Hill v. State, 72 Miss. (1895), 527; Cannon v. State, 75 Miss. (1897), 364; State v. Rees, 76 Miss. (1898), 435.

There is nothing in the point that the indictment did not give the names of the persons murdered. It put the accused upon notice that she was charged with the murder of her two infant children at the same time; the proof subsequently taken completely removed the objection. The objection should have been made before the verdict. Code of 1892, §§ 1341, 1354. The corpus delicti was proven in the case at bar to the satisfaction of the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Properly instructed, the jury rendered a verdict of guilty.

Counsel overlooks the distinction made by Mr. Greenleaf between discoveries of the instrument by which death was produced as a result of a confession and the production of the instrument itself by the person, as in this case.

The tests applied to confessions, either as to words or acts, show that the appellant is not within any rule of exclusion. Draughan's case, 76 Miss. 574; Ford's case, 75 Miss. 101; Hunier's case, 74 Miss. 515; Thompson's case, 73 Miss. 584 Smith's case, 72 Miss. 420; Williams' case, 72 Miss. 117; Ellis' case, 65 Miss. 44; Jones' case, 58 Miss. 349.

OPINION

CALHOON, J.

On the facts the verdict of the jury cannot be properly disturbed, and it found, under full instructions, that the evidence established the corpus delicti and the guilt of appellant.

However the monstrous nature of the details of double infanticide, their causeless, useless, senseless, butcherous atrocity, with the certainty of, and indifference to, detection, sufficiently suggest the possibility of the sudden access of, and sudden recovery from, puerperal mania, to indicate, as we all concur in thinking, the propriety of commutation of the life sentence to a limited number of years. The indictment charges that appellant "did then and there, wilfully, feloniously, and of her malice aforethought, kill and murder two certain human beings, the same being then and there her infant children." It was not demurred to, but the trial proceeded to verdict when, for the first time, objection was made to its sufficiency on a motion in arrest of judgment. This was too late, because of statutes enacted since the case of Miller v. State, 5 How. 250, and these statutes are: Code, §§ 1341, 1354, 1435, and they are applied and construed in Norton v. State, 72 Miss. 128; Burnett v. State, 72 Miss. 994, 18 So. 432; Gates v. State, 71 Miss. 874, 16 So. 342; Rocco v. State, 37 Miss. 357; Haywood v. State, 47 Miss. 1; Garvin v. State, 52 Miss. 207; Murrah v. State, 51 Miss. 675; Knight v. State, 64 Miss. 802, 2 So. 252; Wood v. State, 64 Miss. 761, 2 So. 247; Miller v. State, 68 Miss. 221, 8 So. 273; Foster v. State, 52 Miss. 695; Blumenberg v...