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83 Miss. 287

Thompson v. State

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided October 15, 1903

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1903-10-15

BkoM the circuit court of Winston county. Hon. Guión Q. Hall, Judge. Thompson, appellant, was indicted, tried, and convicted of the murder of one William Colter, sentenced to the penitentiary for life and appealed to the supreme court.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1903-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently December 2017

10 state decisions

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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.

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TbulTj J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2It has always been, is now, and we trust ever shall be, the law in criminal cases that, where there are two reasonable hypotheses arising out of and supported by the evidence, it is the duty of the jury to adopt the hypothesis consistent with innocence, even though the hypothesis of guilt be the more probable. It is likewise the law that it is the duty of the jury to reconcile the proven facts and circumstances with the theory of innocence, if such can reasonably be done. It is also true that there is no presumption of guilt permitted by the law, and that a reasonable doubt can arise from a want of’evidence as well as from the evidence itself. The instructions asked by the defendant and refused by the court stated these propositions of law with substantial accuracy, and, as no instructions were granted him announcing these principles, we cannot safely affirm that no harm was done the cause of the defendant, and this judgment must be reversed. Hale v. State, 72 Miss., 140, 16 South., 387; Owens v. State, 80 Miss., 499, 32 South., 152.

¶3We again urge upon trial courts that they should not experiment as to how few instructions they can grant defendant and still be sustained, but should see that every right which he is guaranteed under the law is liberally granted to the defendant, and leave the final decision upon the facts to the fairness and common sense of the juries. If this course is adopted an equal number' of convictions will be had, more judgments will be affirmed, the interest of the state be better served, and the expenses of the courts considerably diminished.

¶4Reversed and remanded.

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