Smith v. State

Citations

• 103 Miss. 356
• 60 So. 330

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal Law. Jurors. Challenge. Refusal to continue Trial. Instructions. Reasonable doubt. Verdict. New trial. Impeachment of juror. Code 1906, sections 1508, 8685. Indictment.</p> <p>Where, after the beginning of a trial for murder.,and one witness was being examined, one of the jurors received .a dispatch announcing the serious illness of a member of his family and both sides agreed to excuse him and defendant then requested that the court retain the remaining eleven jurors, it was not reversible error for the court to enter a mistrial, discharge the jury and award a new special venire on request of the state.</p> <p>2. Criminal Law. Challenge for cause. Code 1906, section 8685.</p> <p>Under Code 1906, section 2685, so providing, the exclusion of a juror from a panel for cause is not assignable as error.</p> <p>3. Indictment. Amendment. Christian name of accused.</p> <p>Under Code 1906, section 1508, so providing the court may allow an amendment to an indictment, so as to change the real Christian name of accused.</p> <p>4. Continuance. Witness. Impeachment.</p> <p>A judgment will not be reversed and a new trial granted, the only effect of which would be to enable an appellant to impeach the credibility of a witness.</p> <p>5. Criminal Law. Misleading instructions.</p> <p>An instruction for the state in a murder trial that “the jury did not have to know, that accused is guilty before they can convict, but it is only necessary, that they believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty,” is not misleading, because omitting .the grade of the crime, when that is covered by other instructions.</p> <p>6. Criminal Law. Instructions. Reasonable doubt.</p> <p>An instruction for the state in a trial for murder, that the jury may not hunt for doubts, or indulge in conjectural doubts, but the doubts that ought to make the jury pause must be reasonable doubts and arise out of the evidence or want of evidence, and that they need not know that accuse