Ducett v. State
| Decision Date | 14 April 1914 |
| Docket Number | 533 |
| Citation | 65 So. 351,186 Ala. 34 |
| Parties | DUCETT v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied June 4, 1914
Appeal from Law and Equity Court, Hale County; Charles E. Waller Judge.
Ross Ducett was convicted of murder in the second degree, his punishment fixed at 50 years in the penitentiary, and he appeals. Affirmed.
The facts sufficiently appear from the opinion. The following charges were refused to defendant:
Evins & Jack, of Greensboro, for appellant.
R.C Brickell, Atty. Gen., and T.H. Seay, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
We are clear in our opinion that the evidence of the corpus delicti and of defendant's criminal agency was sufficient to carry the general question of defendant's guilt as charged to the jury. The death of the person charged to have been killed was not questioned--was proved beyond peradventure. Deceased, a negro girl, and defendant were alone in a room at the time the former received the fatal wound. The time was shortly after midday on Sunday, and they had just returned together from "meeting." There was nothing to suggest suicide, save defendant's statement made immediately afterwards that deceased had snatched the pistol out of his pocket and killed herself. It was logically necessary, as preliminary to a consideration of the question of defendant's guilt, that evidence be offered from which the jury would be justified in finding that deceased had come to her death by some criminal agency. The court must first be convinced, at least prima facie, that an offense has been committed before it will proceed to consider who did it. But this does not mean that the fact that a crime has been committed should be shown by evidence wholly independent of the relation of the accused to the offense charged. The evidence that defendant committed the crime may be so inextricably blended with proof of the corpus delicti as to make a separation impossible. 2 Chamb.Mod.Ev. § 958. So here. The undisputed presence of defendant alone with deceased, the fact that very shortly before the fatal deed defendant had seemed to invent an occasion for the temporary absence of the father of deceased, the fact that deceased was killed by defendant's pistol, the location of the wound upon her person, the absence of powder burns were circumstances which, taken all together, made proper the admission of evidence of a motive for the crime and of threats made by defendant against the life of deceased, and justified the court in refusing the general charge requested by defendant.
We are unable to see that there was error in the court's admission of Allen Allen's testimony that shortly after the killing defendant passed his house, not running, but "hustling right along, pretty peart." Defendant complains that the fact that he was walking fast was no evidence of guilt, did not tend to show flight, but only to suggest it illegitimately. The probative force of this circumstance, as matter of fact, may have been exceedingly slight, or it may have indicated nothing at all in respect of defendant's guilty connection with the death of deceased; but it cannot be said, as matter of law, that there was absolutely nothing in it. If it was a mere straw, still the interpretation of its evidential force and effect was a matter for the jury.
There was evidence tending to prove defendant's general good character. He was therefore entitled to have the jury instructed as to the proper function and possible effect of such evidence. Goldsmith v. State, 105 Ala. 12, 16 So. 933. But charge 3, refused to defendant, goes rather further than any charge on the subject which has heretofore had the approval of this court, so far as we are now advised. Strictly speaking, proof is demonstration, and the charge assumes there was proof, when, so far as the court could properly say, there was only evidence tending to establish defendant's good character. In most of the cases in which charges on this subject have been approved this fault has been...
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Minor v. State
... ... Bailey v. State, 168 Ala. 4, 53 So. 296, 390 ... Charge ... 35 is bad, as it omits the word "reasonable" as ... qualifying the word "doubt." Green v ... State, 168 Ala. 104, 53 So. 284; Kirby v ... State, 151 Ala. 66, 44 So. 38; Ducett v. State, ... 186 Ala. 34, 65 So. 351 ... Refusal ... of charge 36 was without error, although a good charge, as it ... had been substantially covered by given charge A ... Refused ... charge 40 was bad in that it pretermits: (1) The ... defendant's bona fide belief that ... ...
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Daniels v. State
...charge 16. Pate v. State, 150 Ala. 10, 43 So. 343. Refused charge 15 was criticized by Mr. Justice Sayre for the court in Ducett v. State, 186 Ala. 34, 37, 65 So. 351, where he said that there was evidence to defendant's good character and he was entitled to have the jury instructed as to t......
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Jarrell v. State, 5 Div. 445.
... ... We are ... of the opinion that the evidence in this case was sufficient ... upon which the jury could find that the crime had been ... committed, and that the defendant was the guilty agent, ... although there were no eyewitnesses, and the evidence was ... circumstantial. Ducett v. State, 186 Ala. 34, 65 So ... 351; Ratliff v. State, supra; Blue v. State, 246 ... Ala. 73, 19 So.2d 11; Ferguson v. Commonwealth, 291 ... Ky. 222, 163 S.W.2d 449 ... Likewise, ... we hold that the trial court did not err in overruling the ... motion for a new trial in so far as ... ...
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Clark v. State
...was not due the general affirmative charge, nor was the court in error in overruling the motion for a new trial. The case of Ducett v. State, 186 Ala. 34, 65 So. 351, furnishes support for our view. The evidence discloses that the deceased and the defendant were alone in a room when the for......