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94 Miss. 91

Johnson v. State

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided October 15, 1908

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1908-10-15

Erom the circuit court of, first district, Yalobusha county. Hon. Samuel C. Cook, Judge. Johnson, appellant, a negro, was indicted and tried for an-assault and battery with intent to murder one Green, .was convicted, sentenced to the penitentiary for seven years, and appealed to the supreme court. The opinion of the court sufficiently states the facts.

Relies on Cole v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1908-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently October 1986

18 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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Eletcher, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This was a prosecution for assault and battery with intent to kill and murder. The evidence was conflicting as to which party fired the first shot, and, indeed, as to who was the aggressor in the difficulty.

¶3The special bill of exceptions contains the following statement : “In the concluding argument by the district attorney, he said: ‘Gentlemen of the jury, there is another witness to this difficulty.. Where is she ? Where is the wife he says he loved so dearly ? Where is the wife he called his baby ? If the defendant had wanted a fair hearing of this caso, if he had been willing that the circumstances of the fight be fairly investigated, why did he not put her on the stand ? The state could not have her sworn and put on the stand, and the defendant could have done so. Where is she ?’ And the district attorney then pointed to *93the witness room. To the use of all of said language to the jury the defendant then and there objected, and moved the court to instruct the jury orally to disregard them, which objections and motions were overruled by the court, to which action of the court the defendant then and there excepted.”

¶4There is a much stronger case for reversal than was Cole v-State, 75 Miss. 142, 21 South. 706, in which case this court held flatly that the district attorney should not comment upon the failure of the wife to testify; for in that case it does not appear,, as here, that timely objection was made, and that the district attorney proceeded in his improper argument with the full knowledge of the court.

¶5Reversed and remanded.

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