Eva Parham Marable v. State of Tennessee

Summary

The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed Eva Parham Marable's conviction of second-degree murder for the slaying of her husband, a case resting entirely on circumstantial evidence, holding that the proof conclusively excluded suicide and every other reasonable hypothesis except her guilt. The court held that testimony revealing her refusal, on advice of counsel, to take a lie detector test was not reversible error because defense counsel explored it at length without objection and the trial judge struck it and instructed the jury to disregard it, and that the testimony did not violate the self-incrimination clause of the Tennessee Constitution because nothing was compelled. Objections to the District Attorney General's closing argument, including his quotation of a poem from a prior opinion and assorted personal remarks, were rejected as harmless absent timely objection and any showing of prejudice, and an affidavit merely duplicating trial testimony was not newly discovered evidence warranting a new trial.