Crenshaw v. State

• Decision Date: 04 May 1922
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 513.
• Citation: 93 So. 465,207 Ala. 438
• Parties: CRENSHAW v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

93 So. 465

207 Ala. 438

CRENSHAW v. STATE.

3 Div. 513.

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 4, 1922

Appeal from Circuit Court, Butler County; A. E. Gamble, Judge.

Jake Crenshaw was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Beddow & Oberdorfer and Roderick Beddow, all of Birmingham, for appellant.

Harwell G. Davis, Atty. Gen., and Lamar Field, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

PER CURIAM.

Appellant was convicted of the murder of Mrs. Laura Gafford, and his punishment fixed at death.

This is the second appeal in this cause. Crenshaw v. State, 205 Ala. 256, 87 So. 328. Upon the former appeal it was held that the trial court will not be reversed in holding that Camie Cheatham, a negro girl 6 or 8 years of age, was competent to testify, in view of her voir dire examination. The court is of the opinion that the testimony upon this question is not so materially different upon this appeal as to justify a contrary conclusion. This observation applies also to the admissibility of statements alleged to have been made to Officers Tyler and Robins, and the decision upon the former appeal determines that question likewise adversely to appellant's contention.

The affidavits offered by the state and defendant upon the hearing of the motion for a change of venue have been examined. A discussion thereof would serve no useful purpose as the conclusion has been reached by the court that reversible error was not shown in overruling this motion. Godau v. State, 179 Ala. 27, 60 So. 908; Adams v. State, 181 Ala. 58, 61 So. 352; McClain v State, 182 Ala. 67, 62 So. 241.

The deceased was killed on Sunday, May 16, 1920, some time after 2 p. m., at her residence on a plantation in Butler county. She was more than 50 years of age. The defendant is a negro and at the time of the commission of this offense was about 18 years of age. The evidence against him-aside from certain statements, some of which are above referred to-was purely circumstantial. The most damaging proof against defendant was that furnished by the evidence of the negro girl, Camie Cheatham, whose competency as a witness was under discussion upon the former appeal. The defendant left Greenville for Birmingham on the early morning train of Monday, following the murder of Mrs. Gafford on the Sunday afternoon preceding. As noted upon the former appeal, the evidence of the prosecution relating to this circumstance bore the implication of flight, and it was upon the admissibility of evidence in explanation thereof that a reversal of the cause was rested. The defendant went to the home of his sister at Edgewater, near Birmingham, and obtained a job in the mines where he had previously worked. He was arrested while in bed at the home of his sister, and carried by two officers for incarceration in the Birmingham jail.

The evidence for the state was to the effect that at the time of the killing the defendant wore a brown suit of clothes and tan shoes. These were offered in evidence, and admitted by the defendant as his clothing and shoes, and worn by him on the Sunday of Mrs. Gafford's murder. The officers, on their way to Birmingham with the defendant, upon reaching Wylam, stopped at a pressing shop and got a pair of blue serge trousers belonging to the defendant. These trousers showed a torn place on the right knee, and defendant's knee also showed a bruise. The trousers were offered in evidence by the state, over the objection of the defendant, and to this action of the court he duly reserved exception. The defendant explained the question of these trousers and their torn condition at the knee by stating that on the day before he had borrowed a bicycle from a negro boy in that community, and while riding it had received a fall resulting in the injury. It was not insisted by the state that these trousers bore any evidence of blood, or that they were worn by the defendant at the time of the murder, or had any connection with the crime whatsoever. They shed no more light upon any issue involved in the trial of this cause than any other article of wearing apparel owned by defendant, and we are of the opinion that therefore they were entirely irrelevant, and that their admission in evidence was error. A rather full discussion of the question here involved is found in Rollings v. State, 160 Ala. 82, 49 So. 329, wherein the court used the following language:

"If such objects tend to corroborate or disprove, illustrate or elucidate, any other evidence, they are admissible, though such evidence may have a tendency to bias or prejudice the jury, or to elicit their sympathy for, or animosity toward, either the deceased or the accused. 7 Mayfield's Digest, p. 667; 5 Mayfield's Digest, p. 390. But in order for such objects to be admissible in any case,

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