Coleman v. State
| Decision Date | 09 March 1976 |
| Parties | Amburs COLEMAN, alias v. STATE. Div. 435. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
William T. Denson, Goodwater, for appellant.
William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen. and Sarah M. Greenhaw, Asst. Atty. Gen. for the State.
Appellant was convicted of murder in the second degree. The jury fixed the minimum punishment, imprisonment in the penitentiary for ten years. He was sentenced accordingly.
According to the evidence for the State, the body of the alleged victim was found on January 25, 1975, at approximately 4:00 P.M., in a residential section of Ashland. He was there examined by the coroner, the chief of police and others. There were four bullet 'holes' in the body. The record is not clear as to which, if any, were entrance holes as distinguished from exit holes. Pictures of the body were introduced in evidence. A witness pointed to some of the holes as shown by the pictures, but we cannot tell from the record what holes were pointed to by the witness. Before being taken to the funeral home, the body was observed by the Ashland chief of police and by the Clay County coroner. Soon thereafter Chief of Police Alexander, accompanied by State Trooper Jack Watley, went looking for defendant. Upon locating him, they arrested him, and at the time of his arrest defendant handed them a seven-shot pistol, 22 caliber, which had seven fired cartridges in it at the time.
For a conviction, the State relied chiefly upon an admission by defendant that he had killed with the pistol mentioned the victim alleged in the indictment. The admission was made to the sheriff of Clay County, who testified that defendant had been given all the warnings required before a confession becomes admissible in evidence, had been fully advised of his privilege against self-incrimination, of his right to counsel, and the record presents no question as to the voluntariness of the admission made by defendant. He claimed in the statement that he was afraid of the victim, that there had been some ill feeling between them about a woman, that he saw the victim
There were no eye witnesses to the killing, except defendant, who took the stand, admitted the killing and continued to claim that he was acting in self-defense. As to what occurred at the time of the shooting, defendant's testimony did not vary substantially from the previous statement made by him as quoted above.
We agree with appellant that the evidence was not as clear and satisfactory as it could have been to the effect that the victim was killed by being shot with a pistol as charged in the indictment, but we do not agree with the contention that a professional autopsy was necessary or that proof of death under the circumstances here presented could have only been made by an expert witness. No special kind of evidence is necessary to prove the corpus delicti. Circumstantial evidence is sufficient. Hearns v. State, 47 Ala.App. 725, 261 So.2d 64; Dawson v. State, 48 Ala.App. 594, 266 So.2d 806, cert. denied ...
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