Stewart v. State

Mississippi Supreme Court
Stewart v. State, 64 Miss. 626 (Miss. 1887)
Arnold

Stewart v. State

Opinion of the Court

ARNOLD, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

Whether persons jointly indicted for a misdemeanor shall be tried jointly or separately, is a matter in the discretion of the court. *630Code, § 3069. The record shows no abuse of discretion in refusing to grant the application for * severance in this case. We consider the case in the light of the testimony that was permitted to remain before the jury, and doing this, and leaving the evidence of illicit intercourse between the parties after the indictment was found, which appellants complain was improperly admitted and afterward’ excluded by the court from the consideration of the jury, entirely out of view, the verdict cannot be condemned as being clearly or manifestly wrong. There is still enough criminating evidence left to place the verdict on settled principles beyond the control of this court.

But we are of opinion that the excluded testimony was competent and should not have been ruled out. Evidence tending to prove' improper familiarity and criminal intimacy between the parties at a period within the statute of limitations had been produced, and testimony of similar acts and conduct between the parties, both prior and subsequent to the finding of the indictment, was admissible to illustrate or characterize the relations and conduct of the-parties shown to have existed or to have occurred within the time' covered by the indictment. Bishop says that this is the law on the subject, and so say the Supreme Courts of Alabama, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Vermont. Bishop on Stat. Or., §§ 680-684; Alsabrooks v. The State, 52 Ala. 24; Thayer v. Thayer, 101 Mass. 111; The State v. Way, 5 Neb. 283 ; Cole v. The State, 62 Tenn. (Baxter) 239; State v. Bridgman, 49 Vt. 202.

Acts and conduct before and after indictment found might be too remote in point of time to afford any reasonable inference of' guilt as to the offense charged, and when so, proof thereo f should be rejected, but we do not think they were such in this case.

There is nothing in the argument of the district attorney to the jury of which appellants can justly complain. The impropriety of his alluding to testimony which had been excluded from the jury by the court was corrected both by the action of the court and the district attorney himself. We do not perceive that his appeal to the jury in regard to miscegenation or his denunciation of the same was improper or unjust to appellants." Affirmed.

Reference

Full Case Name
Mark Stewart and Hattie Brown v. State
Cited By
2 cases
Status
Published
Syllabus
1. MISDEMEANOR. Joint indictment for cohabitation. Severance. Discretion of court. Under ? 3009, Code of 1880, which makes it discretionary with the court whether persons jointly indicted for a misdemeanor shall be tried jointly or separately, this court will not reverse a judgment of conviction because of the refusal of the lower court to grant a severance to a white man and colored woman jointly indicted for unlawfully cohabiting together, where it is not shown that there was any abuse of the discretion reposed in that court. 2. Unlawful Cohabitation. Evidence to show. Sufficiency of case in judgment. S., a white man, was indicted for unlawfully cohabiting with B., a negro woman. The evidence for the State tended to show that S. and B. were seen in bed together within two years before the finding of the indictment, that during a period of five or six years they had lived near each other, that S. was frequently seen at the house of B., especially on Sundays, and that B. had two children whom S. was heard to call his children. The evidence for the defense tended to contradict these facts. The jury found the defendants guilty. Held, that as this court cannot condemn such verdict as manifestly wrong it must stand. 3.. Same. Evidence of acts subsequent to indictment. On the trial of persons indicted for unlawful cohabitation, evidence tending to prove improper familiarity and criminal intimacy subsequent to the finding of the indictment is admissible to illustrate and characterize the relations and conduct of the parties shown to have existed or to have occurred within the time covered by the indictment, if such acts be not too remote in point of time to afford any reasonable inference of guilt. •4. Same. Practice. Argument of district attorney. A white man and colored woman convicted of unlawful cohabitation cannot maintain an assignment of error based upon the fact that the district attorney appealed to the jury to discountenance miscegenation and denounced the practice thereof.