Davis v. State

Citations

• 85 Miss. 416

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal Law. Murder. Evidence. Error in admitting. Exclusion. Gwrative effect.</p> <p>The vital question in a prosecution for murder being whether defendant or deceased was the aggressor, and the evidence on the subject sharply conflicting, the error of admitting hearsay evidence to the effect that defendant had threatened deceased was not cured by its subsequent exclusion, with' direction to the jury to disregard it.</p> <p>2. Same. Witnesses. Impeachment. Collateral matters. Releva/ncy.</p> <p>The defendant in a murder case and his wife having testified that she did not, after the killing, say to him in the presence of third persons, “If you had listened to me, you would not have gone down there and the man would not have been killed,” it was error to allow the state to contradict them, since their testimony on the subject related to a collateral and irrelevant matter.</p> <p>3. Same. Argument to ju/ry. Reading parts of the testimony.</p> <p>In a prosecution for crime the district attorney should not be permitted to read to the jury portions of the testimony as written out by the official stenographer.</p>