Dabney v. State
Mississippi Supreme Court
From the circuit court of Adams county. ITon. Jeee Truly, Judge. Dabney, appellant, was indicted, tried and convicted of rape, and appealed to the supreme court. On the trial a witness was permitted to testify, over defendant’s objection, that he, the witness, lived in an adjoining room to the prosecutrix and that his trunk was broken open and a suit of clothes stolen therefrom by defendant about the time the woman claimed to have been raped.
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From the circuit court of Adams county. ITon. Jeee Truly, Judge. Dabney, appellant, was indicted, tried and convicted of rape, and appealed to the supreme court. On the trial a witness was permitted to testify, over defendant’s objection, that he, the witness, lived in an adjoining room to the prosecutrix and that his trunk was broken open and a suit of clothes stolen therefrom by defendant about the time the woman claimed to have been raped. The court erred in admitting evidence for the state as to defendant’s stealing clothes from the house of prosecutrix, and thereby biasing the jury…
1Opinion of the CourtWhitfield, C. J.
It was error to admit the testimony as to the appellant’s breaking into the trunk and stealing thé clothes therefrom. There are cases in which it is competent to prove'the commission of other crimes, and the principle within which this proof is allowed is very clearly stated in Rice’s Evidence, vol. 3, c. 25. Such proof is allowed where the different crimes are parts of a system of crimes. An illustration of this is the case of Regina v. Geering, 18 L. J. M. C., 215. That was the case-of a woman indicted for poisoning her husband in September, 1848, and the question was whether the poison was…
2Cases cited4 opinions
- Shaffner v. CommonwealthSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1872
- Commonwealth v. ChoateMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1870
- Commonwealth v. FerriganSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1863
- People v. WoodNew York Supreme Court · 1858
3Cited by18 opinions
- Johnson v. StateMississippi Supreme Court · 1982
- Lambert v. StateMississippi Supreme Court · 1984
- Floyd v. StateMississippi Supreme Court · 1933
- Hawkins v. StateMississippi Supreme Court · 1955
- Spears v. StateMississippi Supreme Court · 1965
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