The Semi-weekly leader. (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1905-1941, 1906-06-09
THE Law ON POISONING.
The Supreme Court Construes the
Statute and Reverses Special
Judge Mcknight.

of Wilkinson county. This will
be remembered as the sensational
case where Mrs. Calista Stuart
was placed on trial a few months
ago on an indictment charging
her with poisoning her husband.
Hon. Theo. Mcknight, sitting
as special judge at the trial, gave
peremptory instructions to the
jury to bring in, a verdict of not
guilty, because the indictment al
legged that defendants husband
had taken poison administered to
him by her, whereas the testimony
introduced by the State, showed
that the poisoning, if there was
poisoning, was done in the form
of an enema, prepared by defend
ant and self-administered by her
husband, hence, poison had not
been taken" within the meaning
of the statute, and therefore the
Indictment was fatally defective.
From this construction of the
law by Special Judge Mcknight,
District Attorney Webb appealed,
and the opinion of the Supreme
Court which was handed down by
Judge Mayes, is given in full be-
low:
The State
VS..
Mrs. Calista Stuart.
Mayes, j.
Mrs. Calista Stuart was indicted
in the Circuit Court, of Wilkinson
county under section 1854, Code
1892. The charge being that she
did, on the 9Th day of February
1906, administer to one w. G.
a human being, a certain
poison, to-wit, morphine, which
poison and morphine, as admin
istered, was was actually taken
by said w. G. Stuart, whereof
the said W. G. Stuart did not die,
and that the poison was admins
tered bySMrs. CaIista Stuart to W.
G. Stuart with the felonious in
tent, then and Herewith, and by
meansof the poison and morphine
aforesaid, administered as afore-
said, unlawfully wilfully, felon-
eously, and of the malice afore-
thought, to kill and murder the
said VIC. STUART
The record shows that the State
offered to Prove that defend
ant prepared an enema and ad-
same to her husband,
W. c. Stuart, who placed the tube
Of the syringe himself, by way of
assisting her, and that Mr.. Stuart
did not suspect that there was any
poison in the enema; afterwards,
physicians were called and found
Stuart in state of coma. a dap.
gerous condition which required
great exertion to restore him; they
offered to show by these physi-
clans that Stuart was suffering
from opium or morphine poison
ing at the time. The court refus-
ed to allow the District Attorney
to prove this, and held that the
administration of poison in this
manner was not an actual taking
by the party, as contemplated
by section 1854 of the Code.
The District Attorney offered
further to prove that the enema
was administered by means of
rubber syringe, and states that he
cannot prove a case of poisoning
under the indictment, unless be is
permitted to do SO by showing
that the poisoning was by means
of an enema, and was not taken by
the mouth. The court declined to
let any of this proof go to the
jury and gave a peremptory in
struction that the jury should ac-
quit the defendant.
Section 1854 of the statute
provides that:
Every person who shall be
convicted of having administered,
or of having caused or procured
to he administered, any poison to
any human being with intent to
kill such human being, and which
shall have been actually taken by
such human being, whereof death
shall not ensue, shall be punished
by Imprisonment in the peniten-
tiary for a term not less than ten
years. =
The peremptory instruction
should not have been given by the
Circuit Judge in this case, and his
Interpretation of the word "tak
en- is contrary to the sense of
the word as used in the statute.
The word TAKEN as used here,
means any method by which the
system is made to absorb the poi
son administered or procured to
be administered by another per-
son, and includes every possible
way that poison can be administer
ed. It may be by enema, taken
by the mouth, or by rubbing it
into the skin by means Of a mas
sage, but the ofense is committed
within the plain meaning of this
statute whenever any person,
designedly, causes poison to come
in contact with, and be absorbed
by the system, and it matters not
what method may be used for this
purpose If it is done with the in