Case ID: miss_83/html/0439-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Truly, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Majors v. State of Mississippi.
    Ckiminal Law. Opinion. Evidence. Homicide. Deadly weapon.
    
    The opinion of witnesses that a stick produced on the trial was a deadly weapon in the hands of the decendent is inadmissible in a prosecution for homicide, the comparative size and physical prowess of the combatants having been shown.
    Erom the circuit court of Leake county.
    Hon. JohN B. ENoohs, Judge.
    Majors, appellant, was convicted of a homicide and appealed to the supreme court.
    The facts upon which the case turned are stated in the opinion of the court.
    
      O. A. Luchett and Sullivan & McMillan, for appellant.
    The third assignment was to the action of the judge in sustaining the objections of the state to a question asked a witness on direct testimony, and which question was as follows:
    “Tell the jury if that stick or board, in the condition it was at the time, was capable of producing death or serious bodily harm in the hands of a man like Davis McDuff ?” The state made a general objection to this question, without stating the reason or point of objection, and the same was sustained by the court. <
    It was a material issue as to the condition of that stick or board at the time of the shooting, for if it was an instrument capable of producing death or great bodily barm, defendant bad tbe right to shoot, if he reasonably believed at the time that he was in danger of being attacked by the deceased with-it, and there was at the time some hostile demonstration by the deceased, evidencing a design on his part to make an attack on appellant with such stick and to protect himself against such threatened attack with such stick or board, appellant shot and killed deceased.
    These were matters which the jury were to pass upon, and any competent testimony going to prove the character of stick or board, then held by deceased in his hands at the time he was killed was certainly admissible, and its rejection by the court was error.
    It may be claimed that this is merely the- opinion of the witness, which is incompetent, but while this was the opinion of the witness, or rather we were trying to get his opinion, from a known fact, it was competent under the circumstances.
    Opinions of ordinary witnesses are, under certain circumstances, necessary and competent, as where facts which are made up of á great variety of circumstances and a combination of appearances which cannot be properly described, may be shown by witnesses who observe them; and where their observation is such as to justify it, they may state the conclusions of their’ own minds. In this category may be- placed matters involving magnitude or quantities, portions of time, space, motion, gravitation, value, appearances of persons or things. Underhill Or. Ev., 4; Hughes Crim. Law and Proc., sec. 31Y5; Chapman v. Chapman, 129 Ill., 390; Needham v. People, 98-111., m.
    
    
      J. N. Flowers, assistant attorney general, for appellee.
    It is contended here that the court erred in refusing to permit a witness to say whether the board “in the condition it was at the time, was capable of producing death or great bodily barm in tbe bands of a man like Davis McDuff.” Sncb opinion evidence is admissible only in cases where tbe effect of an aggregation of details is songbt to be shown, and it is impossible to enumerate or describe tbe details. Give tbe jury tbe dimensions of tbe board and they were as able to classify it as tbe witness. Its character as a dangerous, or deadly or inoffensive weapon is not dependent upon any appearance difficult to describe. 12 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law (2d ed.), 490.
   Truly, J.,

delivered the opinion of tbe court.

Tbe defendant offered to prove by several witnesses that, in their judgment, tbe stick or board with which it was claimed an assault was attempted to be made by tbe deceased upon tbe defendant was, in tbe bands of tbe deceased, a deadly weapon, capable of producing death or serious bodily injury. To this expression of opinion tbe state-objected, and, tbe objection being sustained, an exception was reserved, and this ruling of tbe court below is assigned as error here. We think tbe action of tbe court correct. Tbe weapon in question was produced before tbe jury, and they were as capable of deciding the question of whether or not it was a deadly weapon, capable of producing death or great bodily injury, as were tbe witnesses themselves. Tbe witnesses were permitted to state tbe size and physical prowess of tbe deceased as compared with tbe defendant, and also tbe condition in which tbe board was at tbe time of the homicide, and from this statement of facts it was for the jury to draw their own conclusions. This is tbe universally established rule of evidence. See Saffold v. State, 76 Miss., 258, 24 So. Rep., 314; Doering v. State, 49 Ind., 56, 19 Am. Rep., 669; State v. Rhoads, 29 Ohio St., 171.

The other assignments of error present nothing demanding consideration.

1Affirmed