Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1898-02-26
The L|PSCOMD CASE.
The Doctor Given a New Trial by
the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Tho Decision Turned Upon Unique Testi-
mony-Judges Not Agreed on the
Points Of Difference.

JACKSON, MISE, req. lJ.-Dr. w. IL.
Lipscomb, the alleged poisoner OF
Charles Stewart, in Kemper county,
gets a new trial.
The supreme court rendered the de-
cision this afternoon. Special Justices
Magruder and Thompson concurred in
the reversal; Whitfield, ]. dissented.
The crime for which DIR. Lipscomb
was tried and convicted in the lower
court was one of tba moat attractions in
the criminal history of the State. He
was alleged to have poisoned n Charles
Stewart by means of a %strychnine cap
sule, administered in the guise of a pre-
scription. The motive was to get in
surance money which Guy Jack, an al
legged accomplish, who is now under
bond for the ~offense, held upon the life
of Stewart. amounting to about s15, 600.
The suspicion of wholesale poisoning
of others, insured in that county, who
had been dying conveniently and mys-
teriously, gave the case a tremendously
sensational interest.
Grounds of Dissent.
Thompson dissented as to the rule in
this particular case. All concurred that
the court below erred in granting the
ninth instruction for the State. 1t was
as follows:
"Circumstantial evidence has been re-
ceived in every age of the CONNER law
as competent evidence, and it may rise
so high in the scale Of belief as to gen.
crate a full conviction. When, after
due caution, this result is reached. the
law authorizes the jury to act on it."
Judges Whitfield and Thompson con
Cured, Magruder dissenting, in holding
that the court erred in refusing the fiji
teenth instruction asked for by the de
fendant. 1t was:
"The court instructs the jury that thu
dying declaration of deceased, made tt
his wife, is not entitled to the SAM
credit and force as if deceased wer'
still alive and testifying in the pres
ence of the jury under oath; that it is
species of hearsay evidence and Is in
trinsically weaker than if the declaran
was present and subject to cross
examination. The jury alone are tn
judges of its weight and force"
For the above reasons Magruder an
Thompson concurred in reversing TIL
case. Whitfield held that while ther
were errors in the ninth and fifteent
instructions, they were not reversible
ones, and therefore dissented.
= The crime was committed over a yea
ago.
CurIously Involved Decision.
Never was there a more curiously il
volved decision by any court. 1t turne
Q chiefly on the admission of the dyir
? testimony Of Stewart, the granting
the ninth instruction for the State ar
/ the refusal of the fifteenth instructic
I asked for by the defendant. The dyir
declaration of Stewart, which was a
Il mitted in the lower court, was made
his wife alone and was as follows;
81 have been dead, and the good Lol
= sent me back to tell you that DR.. Lip
comb has killed me. He has poison'
me with a capsule he gave me tonigt
Guy Jack hired him to do it to get Il
insurance"
Magruder, j., held that no part
this dying declaration was admissib.
and that it was ~inseparable. Justic
Whitfield and Thompson %concurred
holding a part admissible to-wit;
"Dr. Lipscomb has killed me.
has poisoned me with a capsule he ga
me tonight"
And they also held it could be sci
rated from the other part of the sta
ment. Whitfield, j., held no error c
be p~redicated on the dying declarati
on the ground that part is incomplete
because general and not specific obj
tions were made in the court below.
Each delivered an opinion and strar
to say, on no one reversible point W.
any two of the court agreed.