Daniels v. State

• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: BROWN, J.
• Citation: Daniels v. State, 12 Ala.App. 119, 68 So. 499 (Ala. App. 1915)
• Decision Date: 08 April 1915
• Docket Number: 104
• Parties: DANIELS v. STATE.

68 So. 499

12 Ala.App. 119

DANIELS v. STATE.

No. 104

Court of Appeals of Alabama

April 8, 1915

Appeal from Law and Equity Court, Marengo County; Edward J. Gilder Judge.

Buster Daniels was convicted of arson, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

The indictment charges the willful setting fire to or burning a cotton seed house by the burning whereof a cotton house containing cotton was burned, the said cotton seed house and said cotton house containing cotton being the property of W.T. Harrison, Sr. The evidence tended to show that the house burned was on the Body place owned by W.C. Harrison in the year 1910, at the time of the fire, and that the fire was discovered in the afternoon in the corner of the seed house under the house, and that defendant was at the house at the burning with the crowd, and there was cotton seed in the cotton seed house and cotton in the cotton house, which was burned; that defendant was seen sitting under a mulberry tree, not quite half a mile from the fire, about the time of the discovery of the fire. The court permitted evidence to introduce that on the night after the fire defendant came over to a witness' house, and that defendant said that he could clear Sol Rose of the burning, as he was with Rose. On the next morning, while at the scene of the fire, defendant said to same witness that Sol Rose set the house afire while defendant watched, and that Rose said he reckoned he had gotten even with Capt. Harrison for treating him mean about his crop.

J.M Miller, of Gadsden, for appellant.

W.L Martin, Atty. Gen., and J.P. Mudd, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

BROWN J.

The burden was on the state to prove the ownership of the property alleged to have been burned as laid in the indictment. Martha's Case, 26 Ala. 72; Graham's Case 40 Ala. 659; Hannigan v. State, 131 Ala. 29, 31 So. 89.

There was no proof that the cotton house was the property of W.C. Harrison, Sr., as alleged in the indictment. The only proof on this subject was the testimony of Sadie Russell, who testified "that she lived at the Body place, owned by W.C. Harrison, in 1910," but the evidence nowhere shows, or tends to show, that the cotton house alleged to have been burned was on the Body place, or that the Harrison who owned the Body place was W.C. Harrison, Sr. For all that appears, W.C. Harrison, Jr., who testified as a witness in the case, owned the Body place. The fact that the cotton house was near the residence of the witness Sadie Russell is not sufficient to afford an inference that the cotton house was on the Body place. If the defendant had called this omission in the evidence to the attention of the trial court, as required by rule 35, circuit court practice, he would have been entitled to the affirmative charge as requested, unless the omission was cured by the introduction of proper evidence, the allowance of which was within the discretion of the court.

"In arson the corpus delicti consists, not alone of a building burned, but also of its having been willfully fired by some responsible person. Burning by accidental and natural causes must be satisfactorily excluded, to constitute sufficient proof of a crime. This degree of proof, though requisite to a conviction, is not, however, antecedent and necessary to the admissibility of a confession." Winslow v. State, 76 Ala. 42.

When there is any evidence at all, even the slightest tendency that the burning was by design, although there is other evidence showing or tending...