Case Name: Adaline Brown v. State of Mississippi
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1910-03
Citations: 96 Miss. 534
Docket Number: 
Parties: Adaline Brown v. State of Mississippi.
Judges: 
Reporter: Mississippi Reports
Volume: 96
Pages: 534–536

Head Matter:
Adaline Brown v. State of Mississippi.
[51 South. 273.]
Ceiminal Law and Procedure. Unlawful sale of intoxicating liquors. Witnesses. Credibility. Code 1906, § 1923. Conviction of crime.
■The statute, Code 1906, § 1923, allowing a witness, as bearing on his credibility, to be examined touching his conviction of any crime, is not exhausted when he has been examined as to one crime; he may be examined touching his conviction of any number of crimes.
Íbom the circuit court of Pike county.
Hon. Moyse H. Wilkinson, Judge.
Lady Brown, appellant, was indicted and tried for and convicted of the unlawful sale of intoxicating liquors and appealed to the supreme court. The facts upon which the decision turned are stated in the opinion of the court.
Glem V. Ratcliff, for appellant.
In Code 1906, § 1923, it is provided that a witness may.be examined touching his interest in the cause or his conviction of any crime. Of any crime, means what it says. If it meant that the witness might be examined as to one conviction only, it would have said so. One reason for the provisions of this statute is, that to show interest or conviction of a witness testifying, goes to his credibility. If it goes to his credibility to show one conviction, to' show several or more than one, affects his credibility still more. If the section and the construction of it, should hold, or mean, that a party is limited to showing only, one conviction to affect the credibility of the witness, that would be tantamount to holding that one conviction shown is sufficient to disqualify a witness altogether to testify. But the law says a litigant may show convictions of any crimes. Then if a party may show one conviction, be may show a dozen, if he can, and thus discredit the .witness in proportion to the jury’s confidence in him as a confirmed criminal. This is the meaning and effect of the statute; the intent and purpose of it. In this case appellant was denied the right to show more than one conviction. Under the late decision of this court in the case of Turner v. State, 95 Miss. 879, 50 South. 629, this was held to be reversible error. Defendant has not had a fair and impartial trial and her material rights have been denied her.
George Butler, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.
While Code 1906, § 1923, authorizes a witness to be questioned touching his conviction of crime, the trial courts are not thereby precluded from excluding matters which are too remote; or from sustaining objections where the same matter has already been proved, over and over again. All things earthly must end somewhere, and the trial court .was not without support in reason vfor its rulings in this case. The statute exhausts itself sometime and is not warrant for a perpetual inquiry into a man’s past history in the courts.
Argued orally by Clem V. Ratcliff for. appellant, and by George Butler, assistant attorney-general, for appellee.

Opinion:
Mates, J.,
delivered the opinion of the court.
Section 1923 of the Code of 1906 provides that any witness may be examined touching his conviction of any crime; yet when counsel undertook to cross-examine as to this, and asked the witness if he had been convicted of more than one crime, the trial court refused to allow the question to be asked. The statute says that the witness may be examined touching his conviction of any crime; that is to say, not whether he has been convicted one time only, but of all convictions. The whole purpose of this testimony is addressed to the credibility of the witness, and, this being the case, all that would operate to discredit, by showing numerous convictions, ought under this statute to be allowed to go to the jury.
We do not think- the other exceptions of counsel are .well taken.
Reversed and remanded.