Davis v. State
| Decision Date | 04 December 1930 |
| Docket Number | 4 Div. 511. |
| Citation | 222 Ala. 285,131 So. 900 |
| Parties | DAVIS v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied Jan. 29, 1931.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Covington County; Emmet S. Thigpen Judge.
Tillman E. Davis was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.
Affirmed.
E. O Baldwin and A. R. Powell, both of Andalusia, for appellant.
Charlie C. McCall, Atty. Gen., and Merwin T. Koonce, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
Tillman E. Davis was indicted, tried, and convicted of the murder of his wife, Cassie Lee Davis, by strychnine poison, and his punishment fixed at death.
Evidence of the state chemist that, upon chemical examination strychnine was found in the viscera of deceased, and that the quantitative analysis indicated a fatal dose, was properly admitted. It was not rendered immaterial because prior evidence of a full confession by the defendant, verbally and by signed statement, had been introduced with other corroborative evidence of the corpus deliciti. A plea of not guilty being in, the state could produce such cumulative evidence as was available. This kind of evidence is favored in cases of poisoning. 30 C.J. 289.
As tending to show motive, the state introduced evidence of defendant's illicit relations with another woman, Hardis Yon. The admissibility of such evidence is not questioned; but defendant complains that the state, over objection, was permitted to go too much into detail, diverting the minds of the jury from the main issue.
The state, through the witness, Hardis Yon, was permitted to give a full account of the liaison between them. Beginning with their meeting a few months before, this narrative covered association thereafter, trips taken together, the fact of illicit intercourse, with details of time and place, leading on to talk of divorce, corroborated by endearing notes even to the day of the homicide.
There was a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. On such issue the evidence properly takes a wide range. The question of motive becomes an even more pertinent inquiry.
The extent to which detailed evidence of these illicit relations should go was in large measure within the sound discretion of the trial court. We find no abuse of that discretion here. Spicer v. State, 188 Ala. 9, 65 So. 972.
This evidence, if true, disclosed a growing intimacy or infatuation, supporting a ready inference that the murder of the wife by poison, with plans for concealment by framing up an automobile accident, were prompted by the desire of defendant to remove his wife as an obstacle to his amours with Hardis Yon.
Was the murder prompted by moral depravity or mental disease rendering defendant incapable of crime? This was the inquiry to which this evidence was rightly directed.
The state, over defendant's objection, was permitted to prove that deceased was pregnant, about five months advanced, at the time of her death.
Appellant earnestly insists this evidence was immaterial, tended to prove no incriminating fact in the case, but only to arouse passion and bias against defendant in the minds of the jury. This fact was a circumstance properly admitted along with the other evidence of motive.
This situation as an obstacle to putting away the wife other than by murder was at least a circumstance proper for the jury.
We would not limit this evidence to the question of motive in connection with the plea of insanity. In cases of wife murder, the fact of her pregnancy goes to the depth of moral depravity.
It is but common knowledge that solicitude and tender care are the natural promptings at such a time, so natural as to be often found in the instincts of the animal world.
Wife murder is heinous within itself and may be regarded the more atrocious when the victim is pregnant through the marriage union.
Mrs. Davis, mother of defendant, having testified on direct examination to demonstrations of affection by defendant toward his wife, it was not error on cross-examination, for purposes of impeachment and upon proper predicate, to admit her alleged declaration made shortly before the killing that she was sorry for defendant on account of his being dissatisfied with his married life.
During the trial, while a state witness was deposing to the...
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