Williams v. State
Mississippi Supreme Court
Peom tbe circuit court of Webster county. IioN. William P. Stevews, Judge. Williams, appellant, was indicted for arson, tbe burning of a storehouse, the property of one Stevenson, in which house appellant was at the time doing a mercantile business. The evidence in the case was wholly circumstantial.
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Peom tbe circuit court of Webster county. IioN. William P. Stevews, Judge. Williams, appellant, was indicted for arson, tbe burning of a storehouse, the property of one Stevenson, in which house appellant was at the time doing a mercantile business. The evidence in the case was wholly circumstantial. Smith and Dixon, witnesses for the state, testified that the defendant, some two or three weeks before the burning of the storehouse, was in the town of West Point, and while there sought to employ them to set the storehouse on fire; that they had told the fact at the time to certain men whose…
1Opinion of the Court
Tekkal, -J.,
delivered the opinion of the court.
The conviction of the defendant is sought to be supported, if it may be so supported, by evidence of the burning of the storehouse occupied by the defendant by such apparent means — the profuse use of oil — as being a way which George Smith testified the defendant proposed to him to burn said building. And to give cogency to this presumption that the defendant caused the house to be burned, because the means that he proposed Smith should use in its burning were apparently used by the incendiary, or to fortify the testimony of Smith upon which the…
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3Cited by12 opinions
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- State v. BaldwinSupreme Court of Missouri · 1927
- Ellis v. StateMississippi Supreme Court · 1971
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