Davis v. State

Decided November 15, 1906

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1906-11-15

From the circuit court of Harrison county. Hon. William H. Hardy, Judge. Davis, the appellant, was tried for and convicted of an assault with intent to murder one Joseph Mashburn, and appealed to the supreme court.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1906-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently May 1942

7 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.

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Calhoon, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The second instruction given the state represents the doctrine, “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus/’ in its most objectionable shape. As given, it is-a charge on the weight of evidence, and *121tells the jury, in effect, that, if they believe any statement of a witness untrue, they must believe all he said, whether 'or not the statement, was wilfully, knowingly or corruptly made, and whether or not they do-, in fact, believe his other statements to be true. White v. State, 52 Miss., on p. 227; Finley v. Hunt, 56 Miss., 221, and Sardis & Delta R. Co. v. McCoy, 85 Miss., 391 (37 South. Rep., 706), cited by appellant’s counsel, and 2 Wigmore on Evidence, sec. 1008, and Boykin v. State, 86 Miss., 481 (38 South. Rep., 725). We do not now decide any other assignment of error. Reversed and remanded.