Mississippi Supreme Court, 1931

McCormick v. State

Mississippi Supreme Court · Decided March 9, 1931 · Griffith

132 So. 757; 159 Miss. 610; 1931 Miss. LEXIS 96 (Southern Reporter)

Counsel

J.M. Travis, of Meridian, for appellant. If more than one crime was committed at the same time and the crimes were so connected and so related, that one of the crimes caused the other crime to be committed and was spontaneous happening about the same time and being a part or the cause of the crime committed, such testimony is admissible as a part of the res gestae. State v. Simmons, 59 So. 975; State v. Blount, 50 So. 12; State v. High, 40 So. 438; Willes v. State, 65 So. 950; Oliver v. State, 20 So. 803; P.O. v. Lewis, 16 N.Y.S. 881; 136 N.Y. 633 ; Tennell v. State, 181 S.W. 458 . H.L. Finch, for appellant. Defendant asked permission of the court to be permitted to show by the three witnesses offered by the state, all of whom were negroes, and had an intimate acquaintance and association with the deceased, that she was of violent reputation, that she was continually in difficulties and that she was dangerous, and habitually uses a knife with or without provocation, and that it was a known fact that the deceased was of a very violent temper and had a bad reputation for peace and violence. The exclusion of the testimony above referred to was palpable error on the part of the court. It was proper for the jury to have heard the testimony of all the witnesses about all of the difficulty in which the deceased was in with Johnnie Dock, as well as with the accused, as it was all a part of the same transaction, and showed clearly the state of mind the accused was in, when she accosted the defendant. Eugene B. Ethridge, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state. It is a fundamental rule of evidence in the trials of criminal cases that where it is attempted to impeach the reputation of a party, it must be done by showing the general reputation in the community in which he lived, and that the answer to such question must be confined to either the word "good" or "bad," and that this must be preceded by the witness having first testified that he knows the general reputation in the community in which the party lives. Cain v. State, 135 Miss. 982 ; Wilkerson v. State, 134 Miss. 853 . The law of this state is that in homicide cases it is not competent for the witness to express his opinion on the subject, it being for the jury to draw the conclusions from the testimony and to decide from all the facts deposed just what conclusion should be arrived at. Cain v. State, 135 Miss. 892 ; Herring v. State, 122 Miss. 647 ; Johns v. State, 130 Miss. 803 . Argued orally by J.M. Travis, for appellant, and by Eugene B. Ethridge, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

Opinion of the Court

Griffith, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

About dark on a Sunday evening a number of negroes were at a restaurant, and, according to the proof offered by appellant, the deceased, a woman, got into an alteracation with one of the men there, with the result that deceased cut, or attempted to cut, this man with a pocketknife. The man ran, and deceased, still armed with the knife, followed, bnt was outdistanced; whereupon deceased returned to the restaurant. It appears that during the altercation with the man he had hit the deceased in some such manner as to cause several women to laugh.

When the deceased returned to the restaurant, which was in a few minutes, she immediately accosted three of the women, and in a loud voice and resentful manner demanded to know why they had been laughing at her when she was hit, and, according to appellant’s witnesses, deceased was then still armed with the knife, *613 and was threatening to cut out the hearts of the three women thus attacked. Two of these women were the appellant and her sister. All the witnesses agree that the deceased had taken hold of appellant’s sister, and appellant’s witnesses assert that the conduct of deceased at that time was such as to indicate a purpose on the part of deceased to use the knife in an immediate deadly attack on appellant’s said sister. At this juncture, appellant got a knife from her purse, and inflicted a wound upon deceased from which death resulted in a short while. .

It was shown by all the witnesses who were interrogated upon that issue that the general reputation of the deceased in the community for peace or violence was bad, and all the witnesses agree that the deceased was the aggressor in the attack upon appellant’s sister. The remaining issues were whether, at the time appellant stabbed the deceased, the latter was, in fact or according to reasonable appearance, then armed with a knife, and whether her conduct, all the circumstances considered, was' such then and there as to reasonably indicate a purpose on her part to use the knife on appellant’s sister. In order that there should be a fair and dependable elucidation and solution of these latter issues, it was necessary for the facts set out in the first paragraph herein-above to be placed before the jury; but these facts were excluded by the court, and, in our opinion, the error in this respect is reversible.

Continuous acts or a series of events, especially when closely connected in point of time, which lead up to and are necessary or clearly helpful to a correct understanding of the main transaction — which tend to explain and elucidate the conduct and purposes of the parties — are as much of the res gestae as the direct act itself, and are admissible as a part of the transaction. 16 C. J., pp. 572, 573; 30 C. J., pp.-194, 195 ; 6 Ency. Ev. pp. 610-612.

Eeversed and remanded.

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