Bridges v. State

• Decision Date: 07 August 1969
• Docket Number: 1 Div. 450
• Citation: 284 Ala. 412,225 So.2d 821
• Parties: Elijah BRIDGES, Jr. v. STATE of Alabama.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 821

225 So.2d 821

284 Ala. 412

Elijah BRIDGES, Jr. v. STATE of Alabama.

1 Div. 450.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Aug. 7, 1969.

Palughi & Palughi, Mobile, for appellant.

MacDonald Gallion, Atty. Gen., and David W. Clark, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

LIVINGSTON, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court of Mobile County, Alabama, finding the defendant, Elijah Bridges, Jr., guilty of murder in the first degree and sentencing him to life imprisonment.

Defendant and a codefendant, Edward Braggs, were indicted and tried separately for the murder of Rawley Hall. Defendant was adjudged indigent and is represented on this appeal by court-appointed counsel who represented him at trial.

The deceased lived in Prichard with her son, Jerry Hall, who was employed as a pharmacist at Providence Hospital. On July 17, 1966, Jerry ended his work shift at the hospital about 11:15 P.M. He and a nurse left the hospital around 11:30 P.M., went to a drive-in for a sandwich, then returned to the hospital parking lot for the nurse's car. Jerry then followed the nurse to her home and saw her safely inside. Upon arriving at his own home between 1:00 and 1:30 A.M. on July 18, 1966, Jerry checked to see that his mother was all right, after which he retired in another room.

Jerry was awakened sometime later by the groans of his mother. He called to her and asked what was the matter; she replied by asking that he get her something for a terrible headache. Jerry went to the kitchen, turned on the light, and noticed that the time was 3:35 A.M. At that point, he decided that he should first check with his mother as to any medication she had taken earlier. He went to the mother's bedroom, but did not turn on the bedroom light. From the light in the kitchen, he could see blood all over his mother's "face and what not." He then went to the bathroom to get a cloth with which to wipe his mother's face. Upon turning the light on in the bathroom, Jerry found blood all over the walls and floor. He immediately called for an ambulance, after which he called a Dr. Henry Gwynn, and an uncle who lived nearby, Roy Stringer. He then took a damp cloth from the bathroom, returned to his mother's bedroom and turned on the light, at which point he discovered blood all over the floor and bed. He remained with his mother until the uncle whom he had called earlier arrived.

Everything was intact in the house, except for a pair of pants which Jerry had taken off upon retiring and placed at the foot of the bed in his room. The pants, less a $5.00 bill which had been in the pocket, were found on a loveseat in the dining room.

An examination at the hospital to which Mrs. Hall had been removed by ambulance revealed a laceration of the scalp, a little over one inch in length and about one-half inch in width; the skull was fractured. Surgery was performed, but Mrs. Hall died approximately 27 hours after being admitted to the hospital. The cause of death was listed as brain damage resulting from the injury.

Lt. Blake of the Prichard Police Department arrived on the scene of the crime about 5:00 A.M. and an examination of the house and surrounding area was commenced. Blood was found on Mrs. Hall's bedclothes and a trail of blood led from her bedroom to the bathroom. Blood was on the bathroom floor and walls. Two oak leaves were found on a throw rug in the hallway. The window in the dining room was raised several inches; indentations apparently made by some sort of tool appeared thereon. On the ground outside the window a section of pipe approximately 30 inches in length was discovered; it appeared that this section of pipe had been removed from a pile of similar pipes in a nearby storeroom. A broken branch was found under a bush just outside the window.

The defendant, a Negro male, was 17 years of age when he was taken into custody between 10:00 and 11:00 A.M. on July 20, 1966, by officers of the Prichard Police Department. He was first taken to the Juvenile Division of the Police Department, fingerprinted and photographed, and then removed to the Detective Division of said Department at approximately 2:00 that afternoon. Sometime during the afternoon, he accompanied two police officers, in a police vehicle, to the area of his residence, where one of the officers talked briefly with defendant's mother, who came to the side of the vehicle.

At 6:35 P.M. on July 20, 1966, Bridges was booked on a charge of "D & S," apparently a charge placed against a suspicious person while an investigation is conducted.

The evidence tended to show that the defendant received a meal in a cell about 6:30; sanitation facilities were available to him at this time. About 7:30 P.M., he was returned to the Detective Division and the presence of police officers Gilbert and Rigsby of the Prichard Police Department. Detective Bell of the Mobile Police Department arrived between 7:30 and 8:00 P.M. Around 9:00 P.M., the defendant made an oral statement to Detective Bell, after which he accompanied officers to the scene of the crime and allegedly further implicated himself. After returning to the police station, Bridges repeated his earlier oral statement to Lt. Blake at approximately 11:00 P.M. Shortly after midnight, Detective Reynolds of the Prichard Police Department took a written statement from the defendant which concerned the earlier oral statements; this statement was signed by Bridges.

At 2:40 A.M. on July 21, 1966, Bridges was booked on a charge of burglary of Levine and Sanders, a hardware store in the vicinity of the Hall residence, which had been burglarized on the same night as the Hall murder occurred. On July 26, 1966, Bridges was booked on a charge of murder. Trial date (evidently arraignment) was set July 29, 1966; a bond of $10,000 was set on each of these charges.

The evidence tended to show that the Hall residence was burglarized about 3:35 A.M. on July 18, 1966. The State advanced the contention that Mrs. Hall was struck a mortal blow with the pipe found outside the window when she surprised the codefendant, Braggs, in the Hall residence. It further contended that the defendant herein, Bridges, acted as a lookout, remaining outside the Hall residence, while Braggs entered the house.

On appeal, defendant argues seven assignments of error, which will be treated in the order presented in brief.

Assignment of error No. 1 is premised upon the contention that the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion to quash the indictment returned by a grand jury from which women were totally excluded.

The defendant was indicted on September 28, 1966. On the same day, the codefendant, Braggs, was indicted for the same offense, murder in the first degree. Braggs was convicted of said offense on February 3, 1967. Bridges was convicted on March 24, 1967.

The same contention was made in Braggs v. State, 283 Ala. 570, 219 So.2d 396, as is made here, and was disposed of by the decision in the Braggs Case, rendered by this Court on February 13, 1969. See Braggs v. State, supra. We see no point in reiterating what we so recently said in the opinion in the Braggs Case as to this contention, but merely point to that decision as the answer to the appellant's contention here.

In assignment of error No. II, appellant argues that the trial court erred in denying the defendant's motion to strike the jury venire, filed on March 17, 1967, in that the jury lists or rolls prepared by the jury commission did not contain the names of all citizens qualified to serve on juries, but in fact such rolls contained the names of only a few of the total number of citizens qualified to serve in Mobile County, Alabama. Although the appellant attempts to distinguish assignment of error No. II from assignment of error No. I by stating in argument that this assignment of error, No. II, is based upon the failure of the jury commission of Mobile County, Alabama, substantially if not totally, to perform its duty to place the names of all qualified citizens of said county on the jury roll as required by statute, his argument is based primarily upon the exclusion of women from the jury rolls. To the extent that his argument is so premised, our conclusion in assignment of error No. I is equally applicable here. See Braggs v. State, supra.

As to that portion of appellant's argument based upon the failure of the jury commission of Mobile County, Alabama, to include the name of every qualified juror in said county on the jury rolls, we adhere to that which was said by this Court in Fikes v. Alabama, 263 Ala. 89, 81 So.2d 303, reversed on other grounds in 352 U.S. 191, 77 S.Ct. 281, 1 L.Ed.2d 246, to wit:

" * * * There is no legal reason for quashing an indictment or venire simply because the jury commission did not put the name of every qualified person on the roll or in the jury box, in the absence of fraud (or a denial of constitutional rights). * * * "

Appellant urges no fraud on the part of the jury commission of Mobile County, Alabama, in the preparation of the jury rolls. In the absence of such a showing, appellant's assignment of error No. II is without merit as to this contention. As we said in Black v. Wilson, 281 Ala. 6, 9, 198 So.2d 286:

" * * * The presumption prevails that public officials charged with a duty will perform that duty. Leonard v. State, 38 Ala.App. 138, 79 So.2d 803, cert. denied 262 Ala. 702, 79 So.2d 808; Smith v. State, 223 Ala. 11, 136 So. 265."

In assignment of error No. III, appellant claims that the trial court erred in restricting the cross-examination of the State's witness, Detective Bell.

The trial court properly heard testimony concerning the voluntariness of the defendant's statements outside the presence of the jury. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908.

The State's attorney explained that the written statement given by the defendant to Detective Reynolds in the early morning of July 21, 1966, was not...