White v. State

Decided October 15, 1895

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1895-10-15

From the circuit court of Perry county. Hon. A. G. Mayers, Judge. On the trial of the appellant upon an indictment for unlawfully selling and retailing spirituous liquors without a license, two of the jurors were introduced by the state, and allowed to testify, over appellant’s objection, as to the character, for truth and veracity, of one of the witnesses of the state whose character had been assailed.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1895-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently November 1963

3 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Whitfield, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2“That a juror may be a witness on a trial before himself and his fellows is well settled. ” Roy v. Horsley, 25 Am. Rep., *51540, note. A juror may always be a witness for either party, and still retain his seat as a juror. ’ ’ Fellows' Case, 5 Me., 335. To the same effect are Rex v. Rosser, 7 Car. & P., 648; 32 E. C. L., 803, a criminal case; Manley v. Shaw, 41 E. C. L., 200; 1 Car. & M., 361, a civil case; Thomp. & M. on Jur., § 216. It is held in State v. Jacob, 30 S. C., 131, s.c. 11 Am. St. Rep., 897, that a juror, in weighing the credibility of testimony, has a right to take into consideration his own knowledge of the character of the witness delivering such testimony — as to which we say nothing. In this case the jurors testified only to character.

¶3We find no reversible error in the other assignments.

¶4Affirmed.