Baldwin v. State

• Decision Date: 25 June 1896
• Citation: 111 Ala. 11,20 So. 528
• Parties: BALDWIN v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

20 So. 528

111 Ala. 11

BALDWIN v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 25, 1896

Appeal from circuit court, Bullock county; J. M. Carmichael, Judge.

Sut Baldwin was convicted of murder in in the second degree, and appeals. Affirmed.

The appellant in this case was indicted and tried for murder in the first degree, was convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to the penitentiary for 10 years. It is not deemed necessary to set out the facts in detail. Upon the hearing of all the evidence, the defendant requested the court to give to the jury the following written charges, and separately excepted to the court's refusal to give each of them as asked: (a) "Unless the evidence against the defendant is such as to exclude to a moral certainty every supposition or hypothesis but that of his guilt, the jury must acquit him." (b) "If the jury believe from the evidence that defendant was reasonably free from fault in provoking the difficulty, that he shot deceased under such circumstances as to create in the mind of a reasonable man an honest belief that his life was in danger, and that defendant did believe that his life was in danger, and if the jury further believe that the defendant had no other means of escape, and that, under these circumstances, defendant shot deceased, then he would not be guilty." The judgment entry, after reciting the arraignment of the defendant and the selection of the jury, then continued: "And the jury thus selected and chosen being duly impaneled and sworn according to law to try the defendant on the indictment in this case, and a true deliverance to make, the court then proceeded to the trial of the defendant on his plea of not guilty," etc.

N. M Bledsoe, for appellant.

Wm. C Fitts, Atty. Gen., for the State.

COLEMAN J.

The defendant was indicted for murder in the first degree, tried convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for 10 years. The questions reserved do not require any extended discussion of the facts of the case, or of the legal questions involved.

The first exception is upon the ruling of the court in allowing the prosecution to challenge for cause the juror Bunkley. The record shows that this juror had been summoned as a witness in the case both by the prosecution and the defendant. The question is not an open one in this state. It has been directly adjudicated adversely to the appellant. Commander v. State, 60 Ala. 1; Atkins v. State Id. 45.

It may be that the oath administered to the jury does not strictly conform to the oath prescribed by the statute, and, in the absence of a statute relative to the question, might work a reversal of the cause. Section 4329 of the Criminal Code reads as follows: "No criminal cause taken by appeal to the supreme court shall be reversed because of any defect in the administration of the oath to any grand or petit jury unless the record in the cause discloses the fact, that some objection was taken in the court below, during the progress of the trial, based on such defect; but this rule shall not apply to cases where it appears affirmatively from the record that the appellant did not have the benefit of counsel on his trial in the court from which the appeal was taken."...