Crenshaw v. State

• Decision Date: 10 June 1932
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 991.
• Citation: 142 So. 669,225 Ala. 346
• Parties: CRENSHAW v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

142 So. 669

225 Ala. 346

CRENSHAW v. STATE.

3 Div. 991.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 10, 1932

Rehearing Denied June 30, 1932.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Conecuh County; F. W. Hare, Judge.

Clarence Crenshaw was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

B. E Jones and Edwin C. Page, Jr., both of Evergreen, for appellant.

Thos E. Knight, Jr., Atty. Gen., for the State.

BOULDIN J.

Clarence Crenshaw was convicted of murder in the first degree for the killing of John D. Barnes, by cutting him with a knife, and was sentenced to death.

There was no eyewitness to the actual killing; the evidence is wholly circumstantial. That deceased came to his death from a stab wound under the left shoulder, penetrating the heart and that it was inflicted by the defendant, is not controverted.

The testimony of Mr. J. F. Wright, witness for the state, was to the effect that, while sitting on his porch, which fronted north on the public road, he saw defendant pass along the road going east, accompanied by a very small brother; that soon thereafter he saw deceased and defendant standing talking in ordinary tones a few steps south of the road and in or about a path leading southeasterly from the road to the home of deceased. No words were understood, nor other sounds heard, nor observation taken of their movements, until Mr. Wright's attention was attracted by a call from the deceased for Joe Wright, who lived just west of where this path left the road. Witness then saw Mr. Barnes come running along the path and fall just before reaching the road. He was dead when witness got to him.

Much evidence for the state was directed to physical signs on the ground, chiefly tracks and blood stains.

Several witnesses testified that tracks of two persons extended along the path leading from the road toward the home of deceased, a distance of some 40 to 50 yards, where the tracks ceased, at which point a bank to the side of the path showed marks as if the toe of a shoe had struck it and slid down, just beyond which the grass was pressed down and blood found. A streak of blood extended from this point back along the path to where deceased fell.

The witnesses testified that one line of tracks in the sand showed a broad-toed shoe, the other a narrower shoe; that both showed long strides 4 to 5 feet, the sand dug out and kicked back by the ball of the foot, and that in two or three instances the narrower shoe had stepped into and marred the track of the broader shoe; that deceased wore a broad-toed shoe, and the tracks with blood stains leading back to where deceased fell were like those of the broad-toed shoe going the other way.

All this evidence tending to show deceased was pursued and struck in the back was objected to for want of proper identification of the narrower track with the defendant, and on the ground that it appeared numerous persons had gathered and walked around before the witnesses made their observations.

No evidence was adduced as to the type fo shoe worn by defendant. There was, however, evidence that these tracks had been guarded for all or a portion of the time; other evidence that there were only two persons' tracks going south and one coming back along the path. This, with evidence tending to show the fatal wound was inflicted by the defendant and that about the southern terminus of this line of tracks, warranted an inference that the track of the narrower shoe was that of defendant. This line of evidence was properly admitted. Ragland v. State, 178 Ala. 59, 59 So. 637; Davis v. State, 152 Ala. 82, 44 So. 545.

The witness Gafford stated: "At the end of the tracks going towards Mr. Barnes' house was a track impression of the toe of a shoe on the bank that seemed to catch the edge of the bank and clawed back down. It made a mark down the bank." The motion to exclude the portion of this statement that the shoe "clawed back down" the embankment was overruled without error. Such expressions are treated, not as matter of opinion merely, but as descriptive of things of common observation and knowledge. Smith v. State, 137 Ala. 22, 34 So. 396; Perry v. State, 87 Ala. 30, 6 So. 425; Watkins v. State, 89 Ala. 82, 8 So. 134.

Mr. Wright further testified that after the killing defendant passed him in the road as witness hurried to Mr. Barnes; that defendant wore a cap. On finding Mr. Barnes dead, witness and Mr. Green went in pursuit of defendant, came in sight of him, but he turned into a road leading to the home of his mother, Rena Crenshaw, and ran. Mr. Wright then turned back, but Mr. Green, who had a gun, pursued until defendant ran into a swamp and escaped for the time. The following night Mr. Wright, with a searching party, was on the road, when a young negro came along the road with something tied on his head, asked the way to Castleberry, was told the way, and that he was going in the wrong direction. After he left the party, he was suspected, overtaken, and detained. On inquiry he gave another name. Some of the party had the youth put on his cap, or one of the party put it on, whereupon Mr. Wright asked the youth if that was his cap. He answered, "Yes." Mr. Wright said, "Yes, and you are Rena's boy, aren't you," and he answered "Yes." He was the defendant.

This line of evidence was criminative in character. It tended to show a ruse to effect his escape; and was admissible on the same principle as evidence of flight.

That he was required by the officers to put his cap on was not requiring defendant to make evidence against himself in violation of constitutional guaranties. The right of public authorities to take such reasonable measures for purposes of identification, we do not question. It was their right and duty to ascertain whether the party was the man they were after, and for such purpose put him in best position for observation by the witness who had seen him at the time of the homicide.

Nor was his giving the wrong name a confession calling for a predicate. As for his admission that he was Rena's boy, when confronted with a charge that he was, the truth of such statement is unquestioned. The entire occurrence was properly gone into. The admissions or statements related to collateral matters, not requiring a predicate. Read v. State, 195 Ala. 671, 71 So. 96; McGehee v. State, 171 Ala. 19, 55 So. 159; 16 C.J. §§ 1099, 1104; O'Brien v. State, 125 Ind. 38, 25 N.E. 137, 9 L. R. A. 323; State v. Struble, 71 Iowa, 11, 32 N.W. 1; White v. State (Tex. Cr. App.) 62 S.W. 749.

There was no error in admitting...