Page:Redd v. State (1897).pdf/10

466 hearsay. No witness testified that these men, found after death with knives in their hands, committed suicide, but only that it was supposed they had done so. This testimony, being based, not upon a fact of which the witnesses testified from their own knowledge, but only upon supposition, was clearly hearsay and incompetent. But it was allowed to go to the jury as competent evidence tending to show that in this case the deceased did not commit suicide. The jury might infer from this evidence that, as Skipper did not hold the knife tightly clasped in his hand, he therefore did not commit suicide. The evidence was calculated to effect their opinion upon a vital point in the case.

But it is argued on the part of the state that the admission of this testimony could not have been prejudicial, for the reason that the jury must have believed the confession of appellant admitted as evidence, and, if that confession was true, Skipper did not commit suicide. But this contention is not sound, for, if such confession was made, it was extrajudicial, and, to sustain a conviction, it must be corroborated by other evidence tending to prove the corpus delicti. In a case of homicide, the corpus delicti consists of two fundamental facts: (1) The death of the person alleged to have been killed; (2) the fact that a criminal agency was the cause of such death. In this case the death of Skipper is admitted, but it was still necessary to show by evidence outside of the confession that his death was the result of the criminal agency of another, for such fact cannot be established by the confession alone, and the presiding judge so instructed the jury in this case. Pills v. State, 43 Miss. 472; Wharton's Criminal Evidence (8th Ed.) 633; 1 Greenleaf, Ev. § 217. In order to cover this point, and show that Skipper was killed by another, and not by his own hand, the testimony of the two witnesses just referred to was