Barefield v. State, 4 Div. 601.
Decision Date | 24 June 1941 |
Docket Number | 4 Div. 601. |
Citation | 30 Ala.App. 243,5 So.2d 113 |
Parties | BAREFIELD et al. v. STATE. |
Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Rehearing Denied June 30, 1941.
M I. Jackson and R. H. Bennett, both of Clayton, for appellants.
Thos S. Lawson, Atty. Gen., and Francis M. Kohn, Asst. Atty. Gen for the State.
Conviction of the defendants was rested upon a chain of suspicious circumstances which tended to place them at the scene of the crime. While no motive for the crime was substantially shown and the evidence was none too strong, we think it was sufficient, perhaps, to afford a substantial inference against them and warranted submission to the jury of the question of guilt.
Under such circumstances, the affirmative charge was correctly refused. Wells v. State 29 Ala.App. 586, 199 So. 253; Emerson v. State, Ala.App., 1 So.2d 604, 605.
Motive was sought to be established by the sole statement of the appellant, Barefield (denied by him) "that he was going to soon have some beer down there to sell" (meaning in the vicinity of the church); and that the preacher and members of the church were militantly opposed to the licensing of beer in that community.
There may have been a way of adducing legal evidence to support such a theory, but the method adopted here, and by the rulings of the trial court given approval, was unauthorized and resulted in great prejudice to the substantial rights of each and both of the defendants.
Neither of the defendants was shown to be, or to have been, in any way connected with the selling of beer or with the operation of such a business. And the single statement, above, of the defendant, Barefield, gave no legal warrant for the introduction of evidence of the nature and character of the militant campaign of the church against the beer business and the licensing thereof in that community. Some connection with such business or open antagonism, or expressed opposition, or animus against the church program by the defendants should have been shown before saddling them with the burden of the many adverse inferences apparent by such proof.
The following questions and answers, (all duly objected and excepted to by the defendants), typify the prejudicial and incompetent evidence allowed for the State:
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