Alston v. State

• Decision Date: 27 June 1946
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 448.
• Citation: 248 Ala. 163,26 So.2d 877
• Parties: ALSTON v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

26 So.2d 877

248 Ala. 163

ALSTON v. STATE.

6 Div. 448.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 27, 1946

P. P. Evans and Arthur Fite, both of Jasper, for appellant.

Wm N. McQueen, Atty. Gen., and Willard W. Livingston, Asst Atty. Gen., for the State.

STAKELY Justice.

Appellant was indicted, tried and convicted of murder in the first degree, committed while a convict sentenced to imprisonment for life. His punishment was fixed at death by electrocution. This appeal comes to this court under the automatic appeal act, approved June 24, 1943. General Acts 1943, p. 217 et seq., Code 1940, Tit. 15, § 382(1) et seq.

Testimony of the state tended to show the following. On the morning of August 6, 1945, defendant hid near the house of his wife's father, where his wife was staying and after he had observed that his wife's father, mother and older brothers and sisters had left the place, he forced his wife to go with him into the woods behind the house. The younger sister who remained in the house to take care of the babies heard her scream. Eight to ten hours later the wife's body was found with three deep knife stabs in the back, two deep knife cuts on the neck and cuts about the hands. The state introduced in evidence a confession of the murder by the defendant, signed and sworn to by the defendant. The confession also admitted certain other facts leading up to and in connection with the murder, which are not necessary to relate. Evidence for the state also tended to show that at the time of this homicide, this defendant was a convict sentenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary for murder in the first degree, but out of the penitentiary on parole.

No evidence was introduced by the defendant.

The appellant seeks a reversal of the judgment of the lower court on (1) a ruling on the pleading; (2) rulings on the evidence, and (3) the action of the court in refusing certain written charges.

(1) On arraignment the defendant pleaded 'not guilty.' When the case was called for trial, the defendant also sought to plead 'not guilty by reason of insanity.' The court refused to allow the latter plea. There is nothing in the record to show abuse of discretion by the court in this regard. Accordingly the ruling of the court was free from error. Rohn v. State, 186 Ala. 5, 65 So. 42; Morrell v. State, 136 Ala. 44, 34 So. 208; Baker v. State, 209 Ala. 142, 95 So. 467.

(2) The court did not err either in admitting in evidence the Indictment Record of the Tallapoosa County Circuit Court, wherein it is shown that one Edgar Alston was indicted in that court for murder in the first degree or in admitting in evidence a certified copy of the transcript of the conviction and sentence of Edgar Alston in the Circuit Court of Tallapoosa County in 1926, certified to by the Chief Clerk of the State Department of Corrections and Institutions of the State of Alabama from the records of that office. The aforesaid transcript of the conviction and sentence of Edgar Alston shows that it was certified to by the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Tallapoosa County on October 7, 1926.

Section 393, Title 7, Code of 1940, provides in part as follows: 'All transcripts of books or papers or parts thereof, required by law to be kept in the office, custody or control of any public officer, agent, servant, or employee of any municipality, city, county, or of the State of Alabama, or of the United States, when certified by the proper custodian thereof, must be received in evidence in all courts; and it is no objection to such transcript that the book from which it is taken is a copy of office books belonging to the United States. * * *'

Section 17, Title 45, Code of 1940, dealing with the records of the Department of Corrections and Institutions, is as follows: 'In the office of the department shall be kept a book, or books, in which shall be kept a record of all state and county convicts, showing the date of conviction, crime, sentence, county, and court in which convicted, and such other information as the director may prescribe. There shall also be kept such other books as the director may deem proper.'

Therefore, the Indictment Record, being an official record of the Tallapoosa County Circuit Court, and identified as such by the clerk of that court, and the certified copy of the transcript of the conviction and sentence of one Edgar Alston from the office of the State Department of Corrections and Institutions of the State of Alabama being a copy of a record required by law to be kept, both of these records were admissible in evidence.

It is contended that the entry in the records of the Department of Corrections and Institutions is inadmissible because it is a copy of a copy. It is sufficient, among other reasons, to say that § 17, Title 45, Code of 1940, merely provides for a record in the Department of Corrections and Institutions which shall give certain data or information with reference to convicts. Such a record or a certified copy thereof, when offered in evidence, does not import absolute verity, but is treated as prima facie evidence of the facts entered. Woodmen of the World Life Ins. Soc. v. Guyton, 239 Ala. 216, 194 So. 655. It seems to us that the method used by the Department of Corrections and Institutions to compile its record in the present case, by entering a certified transcript of the conviction and sentence of the convict, is a satisfactory method, because it appears to give the data or information required by the statute. This is not to say that there might not be other methods of compiling this public record. We think there was a compliance with the statute in the case at bar and the evidence was competent. Woodmen of the World Life Ins. Soc. v. Guyton, supra. See also Macon County Lumber Co. v. Jones, 215 Ala. 157, 110 So. 1; Hall v. State, Ala.Sup., 26 So.2d 566.

The...