76 So. 2d 242 | Miss. | 1954
Lula Mae Thomas was convicted of manslaughter in the Circuit Court of Harrison County, and from a sentence of five years in the state penitentiary, she appealed. ■
She complains of errors in the admission of (1) the testimony of Joseph Lee Dread, and (2) a purported dying declaration.
When Joseph Lee Dread, a son of the deceased, Josephine Dread, was offered as a witness for the State, the
The boy’s narrative of the circumstances in connection with the killing was clear, straight forward and coherent. It showed that he possessed the capacity and ability “to observe events and to recollect and communicate them, and * * * to understand questions and to frame and make intelligent answers, with a consciousness of the duty to speak the truth.” Yarbrough v. State, 202 Miss. 820, 32 So. 2d 436; Jackson v. State, 158 Miss. 524, 130 So. 729. In the former case the evidence of a girl, five years and four months old at the time she testified, was held to be competent, as was likewise the evidence of a seven year old boy in the latter case. There was no error in admitting this evidence.
An undertaker picked up the wounded woman at the scene of the stabbing. She was bleeding from wounds on her arms and in her chest. One-half of the subclavian artery had been severed. He carried her to the hospital in an ambulance. On the way he passed a po
‘ ‘ I asked her if she had any kind of weapon. She said she had none. She didn’t have a thing in her hand when she walked out the door.”
The witness testified that the declarant, following the above statement, died immediately, although the doctor, who came in evidently just after the declaration, testified that she was unconscious when he arrived and lived about ten minutes thereafter. It is understandable that a layman, upon seeing an injured person lapse into unconsciousness, might honestly believe that such person had died, when in fact respiration and circulation might continue for a brief period of time.
The police officer, in relating to the court and jury the words by which the declarant expressed her realization and solemn sense of impending danger, used indirect rather than direct discourse. ‘ ‘ She said she was going to die” and “she said she was dying,” if transposed to direct discourse, would be equivalent to, “She said ‘I am going to die,’ ” and “She said, ‘I am dying.’ ” Such statements were sufficient to show that the declarant realized that the solemn hour of her death was at hand. She was in fact dying because within ten minutes she was actually dead.
The appellant’s version, if believed by the jury, would have warranted justification on the ground of self defense. The disputed issue of fact was, of course, for the jury, and there was ample evidence to sustain the verdict.
There is no prejudicial error in the record and the cause must be, and is, affirmed.
Affirmed.