Sykes v. State
Mississippi Supreme Court
Sykes v. State, 92 Miss. 247 (Miss. 1908)
45 So. 838
Mayes, Whitfield
Sykes v. State
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is the second appearance of this case in this court. We-think it was error in the circuit court not to have required the jury to clear up their manifestly cloudy verdict; but we would not be willing to reverse for this error alone. The ground on which we prefer to rest our ruling is that the testimony of the woman, on whose testimony conviction was manifestly had, is-utterly unworthy of belief. No conviction should be allowed to stand on testimony of this character.
Reversed and remanded.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- David Sykes v. State of Mississippi
- Cited By
- 7 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. Criminal Law and Procedure. Homicide. Sufficiency of testimony. . Discredited witness. Where the wife of a murdered man, after testifying twice on defendant’s preliminary trial and on his first circuit court trial, that she was wholly ignorant touching the murder and' knew nothing about who killed her husband, and after being herself indicted for the crime and pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact to the murder, testified on a second circuit court trial of defendant that she saw him kill her husband with an axe, her unsupported testimony is too unworthy of belief to support a conviction. , 2. Same. Capital offense. Verdict. Cbscurity. ' In a murder case, a verdict, “We, the jury, find defendant guilty as charged, but cannot agree as to punishment, but do agree to ask the mercy of the court” is indefinite, and the jury should have been required to clear it up.