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1 Miss. Dec. 126

Allen v. State

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided June 8, 1885

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1885-06-08

At the February, 1885, term of the Circuit Court of Adams county appellant, Allen, was convicted of the murder of John Coleman and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. His motion for a new trial was overruled, and he appeals.

Eeversed and remanded, · Decided 1885-06-08

¶1Opinion.

Campbell, J.:

¶2We are not willing for the verdict to stand.

¶3It was rendered on insufficient evidence. The evidence of corpus delicti is far from satisfactory.. It consists entirely of the testimony of Beverly Newton, which is so strange, so improbable, and so much contradicted, as to make it an unsafe basis for a conviction of the highest crime known to law. We know the importance attached to the finding of a jury, and hesitate long before we will disturb it, but will not shrink from the duty to doit, where, as in this case, the verdict is clearly not supported by the evidence on an essential point.

¶4Reversed and remanded.

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