State v. Hensley

The defendant in error, Sam Hensley, was indicted in the Criminal Court of Bradley County, charged with arson. To the indictment he filed a plea in abatement, asserting that a deputy fire marshal had summoned him as a witness and had compelled him ‘ ‘under penalties of the law” to give evidence, “which evidence thus forced from the said defendant was introduced before the grand jury in this cause upon which the said indictment was returned against this defendant;” all in violation of the' right guaranteed to the defendant by the Constitution, Article 1, Section 9, to be free from compulsory…