Owens v. State

Citations

• 80 Miss. 499

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal Law. Presumption of innocence. Defendant's failure to introduce evidence.</p> <p>A defendant charged with crime is presumed innocent until the contrary is shown; a conviction must rest upon affirmative evidence of guilt, and not on defendant’s failure to show innocence.</p> <p>3. Same. Threats. Class threatened.</p> <p>It is not admissible on the trial of a defendant' charged with the murder of a revenue officer for the state to prove a statement made by the accused more than a year before the homicide, but shortly after a revenue officer was reputed to have been fired upon in the vicinity where the homicide occurred, to the effect that “ if the revenue officers don’t quit bothering out there, more of them will be shot. I don’t mean that I will do it, but it will be done.” Such a statement is not a threat either against the decedent or a class of persons to which he belonged, or any body else.</p> <p>3. Same. Impeachment of witness. Instruction. Accomplice.</p> <p>Where a conviction depends solely upon the testimony of an accomplice, who is a confessed perjurer, it is error to refuse defendant an instruction to the effect that if the jury believe from the evidence that any witness had, theretofore or on the trial, sworn falsely to any material fact in the case, they may disregard his testimony altogether, although the court had previously charged the jury that they were the sole judges of the credibility of witnesses.</p> <p>4. Same. Aimed at particular witness. Intent of witness.</p> <p>Such an instruction is not objectionable because aimed at a particular witness (Norwood, etc., Co. v. Andrews, 71 Miss., 641), nor be cause it omitted the idea of the false swearing being intentional, since it was impossible, under the facts of the case, that the false testimony was mistakenly given.</p> <p>5. Same.</p> <p>An instruction accurately drawn and appropriate to the facts of the case, informing the jury that witnesses can be impeached by evidence that they