66 Miss. 192 | Miss. | 1888
delivered the opinion of the court.
The court should not have required the accused, as a condition upon which he would be permitted to testify at all, to take the stand before examining other witnesses whom he desired to introduce. One charged with a felony has a right to be present in court during the whole of the trial, and unless he voluntarily absents himself from the court, the trial may not proceed in his absence. The right to be present during the examination of his ■other witnesses, and the right to testify in his own behalf, are both ¡secured and equally secured to the accused by law, and neither may lbe denied or abridged by the court. It must often be a very ¡serious question with the accused and his counsel whether he shall be placed upon the stand as a witness, and subjected to the hazard of cross-examination, a question that he is not required to decide until, upon a proper survey of all the case as developed by the ¡state, and met by witnesses on his own behalf, he may intelligently weigh the advantages and disadvantages of his situation, and, thus advised, determine how to act. Whether he shall testify or not; if so, at what stage in the progress of his defense, are equally submitted to the free and unrestricted choice of one accused of crime, and are in the very nature of things beyond the control or direction of the presiding judge. Control as to either is coercion, and coercion is denial of freedom of action. If, in response to the suggestion of the judge, the accused had stated that he desired to testify, but could not in justice to himself take the stand until after .other testimony should be delivered, what course could the court
The court also erred in excluding evidence of previous but uncommunicated threats made by the injured party against the accused. There was evidence tending to prove that the injured party made the first hostile demonstration, and though the jury might have disbelieved that such was the case, yet under such circumstances evidence of uncommunicated threats is admissible. Johnson v. The State, ante, p. 189.
The judgment is reversed and cause remanded.