Bouie v. State

• Decision Date: 02 February 1915
• Docket Number: 308
• Citation: 67 So. 619,12 Ala.App. 33
• Parties: BOUIE v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

67 So. 619

12 Ala.App. 33

BOUIE v. STATE.

No. 308

Court of Appeals of Alabama

February 2, 1915

Rehearing Denied Feb. 11, 1915

Appeal from Circuit Court, Houston County; H.A. Pearce, Judge.

Peter Bouie was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Lee &amp Tompkins, of Dothan, for appellant.

W.L Martin, Atty. Gen., for the State.

THOMAS, J.

Written charges numbered 1, 2, and 3, requested by defendant, and the refusal of which by the court is suggested as error, were clearly faulty. Before the jury are authorized to disregard the entire testimony of a witness on the basis of a false swearing by him as to a material fact, they must believe that he willfully swore falsely as to such fact; whereas, these charges predicate such right upon a mere false swearing. "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus," is the maxim but the falsity must be willful--an intentional lapse from what the witness knows to be the truth. When such corruptness of the witness has been proved as to his statement with respect to one material fact--since it furnishes an index to his whole character--it may shatter his credibility in toto and justify a disbelief of all other statements made by him on the trial. But where the falsity of the statement proceeds from honest mistake or a misunderstanding, rather than from a willfulness to commit perjury, the rule is different and does not warrant the dethronement of the integrity of the entire testimony of the witness on this account. Gillespie v Hester, 160 Ala. 445, 49 So. 580; Burton v State, 115 Ala. 1, 22 So. 585; Seaboard Air Line v. Taylor, 9 Ala.App. 628, 64 So. 187. The charges mentioned ignored the question of willfulness, and were properly refused. Authorities supra.

Defendant was charged with murder in the second degree, was convicted on a former trial of manslaughter in the first degree, and on this trial pleaded that conviction as an acquittal of murder in the second degree, which plea was confessed by the state. Consequently, the defendant was tried this time only on a charge of manslaughter. He pleaded self-defense and was found guilty of manslaughter in the first degree.

The only exception to the action of the court in its rulings on the evidence was to its sustaining of the solicitor's objection to the following question propounded by defendant's counsel on cross-examination to the state's witness Jonas Long, a brother of deceased, to...