Hunt v. State
Mississippi Supreme Court
Appeal from the circuit court of Bolivar county. Hon. W. A. Alcorn, Judge. "Will Hunt was convicted of murder and appeals. Appellant was convicted of the murder of his wife, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. There 'were no witnesses to the killing except the defendant himself. Immediately, after the gunshot appellant gave the alarm that his wife had shot herself. She was found with the wound entering her head, the shot having taken an upward range.
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Appeal from the circuit court of Bolivar county. Hon. W. A. Alcorn, Judge. "Will Hunt was convicted of murder and appeals. Appellant was convicted of the murder of his wife, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. There 'were no witnesses to the killing except the defendant himself. Immediately, after the gunshot appellant gave the alarm that his wife had shot herself. She was found with the wound entering her head, the shot having taken an upward range. The appellant testified that his wife was drunk or drug-crazed, and had quarreled with him and gotten a shotgun and was attempting to…
1Opinion of the CourtCook, J.
We have carefully gone over all the evidence in this case, and we can find no single circumstance that points to the defendant’s guilt with that degree of certainty which the law demands. Taking all of the circumstances *589together,'there is no legal proof of guilt. The most that can he said for the state’s case is that there were some suspicious circumstances proven against the defendant.
It is not the policy of the law to punish individuals for crime when the evidence fails to prove that a crime was-, .committed. The evidence here fails in this particular, and the judgment of the trial court is…
2Cited by3 opinions
- Givens v. StateCourt of Appeals of Mississippi · 1998
- Done v. StateMississippi Supreme Court · 1947
- Simmons v. StateMississippi Supreme Court · 1950