Edmonds v. State

• Decision Date: 29 May 1917
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 271
• Citation: 75 So. 873,16 Ala.App. 157
• Parties: EDMONDS v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

75 So. 873

16 Ala.App. 157

EDMONDS v. STATE.

6 Div. 271

Court of Appeals of Alabama

May 29, 1917

Rehearing Denied June 15, 1917

Appeal from Circuit Court, Marion County; C.P. Almon, Judge.

Willie Edmonds was indicted for murder in the second degree, and he appeals. Affirmed in part, and in part reversed and remanded.

The charge is that Edmonds killed Willie Ralls, when about five months old. The defendant seems to be the grandfather of the child, and the evidence for the state tended to show that at the time the shot was fired Calvin Ralls, son-in-law of defendant, had the child in his arms, or was just passing it back to his wife. The defendant and his wife objected to Ralls coming upon the place, but he was there to speak to his wife, who was spending the night with her father, the defendant. The following charges were refused to defendant:

If you have a reasonable doubt growing out of any part of the evidence whether the child was alive at the time the gun was fired, then you should find defendant not guilty.

(34) The humane provision of the law is that every one charged with crime is presumed to be innocent, and this presumption goes with him as a shield for his protection throughout the entire trial until the state removes it by satisfying evidence of such character as to establish his guilt to a moral certainty.

E.B. &amp K.V. Fite, of Hamilton, for appellant.

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

BROWN P.J.

The ruling of the court on the objections of the solicitor to questions asked the witness Mary Ralls, eliciting evidence as to what occurred while her husband had the child "down behind the garden," was free from error. These questions assumed the existence of a fact of which at this time there was no evidence--that Ralls had the baby "down behind the garden."

It was not material to any issue in this case that Ralls and his wife had a difficulty three weeks before the alleged homicide, and that Ralls' wife had told her father, the defendant, of the difficulty.

The only purpose of the question asked the witness Calvin Ralls "Did you marry her over the objection of her father and mother?" was to elicit evidence tending to show a state of bad feelings between the defendant, and Ralls, and if it was error to overrule the defendant's objection to the question, the error was clearly without injury, for the reason that the witness gave a negative answer to the question. Furthermore, the defendant, in his statement to the jury, admitted that his feelings towards Ralls were bad.

The evidence shows without dispute that the witness Mary Ralls got to defendant's house between 12 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and the alleged homicide occurred about 11 o'clock that night. Therefore any conversation between Mary Ralls and the defendant at the time she arrived at defendant's house was not material, and, though she denied making any statement to the defendant concerning her separation from her husband, and of her intention not to live with him, it was not permissible to impeach her as to such immaterial matters. Crawford v. State, 112 Ala. 1, 21 So. 214.

While it is not permissible for a witness to testify as to an undisclosed intention or purpose on his examination in chief, it is permissible for the other party, on cross-examination, to call for such undisclosed purpose. Fuller v. Whitlock, 99 Ala. 411, 13 So. 80. The court properly overruled the defendant's objection to the question propounded to the defendant by the solicitor, "You intended to kill him?"

Refused charge "hh" pretermits consideration of all the evidence, and was properly refused. The principles of law embodied in refused charge 34 were given to the jury in given charge 25. The defendant's version of the necessity for the shooting resulting in the death of the infant of Ralls is thus stated by him:

"He [Ralls] was cursing me when I shot the gun. I asked him to leave the house, and he told me to shoot, and said I couldn't shoot a man and him looking at me; and I told him a second time to leave, and he told me to shoot, and that I didn't have nerve enough to shoot a man, and then I told him a third time to leave. Then he used some very vile language that I do not want to repeat here in the presence of the stenographer and other ladies present. *** Calvin Ralls set his foot on the floor and was making those bad remarks to me when I shot him. Because he cursed me and put his foot on the floor toward me was not the only reason that I shot him; he was imposing on my family. I don't know what he meant to do, whether he meant to kill me or not. I can't say whether he intended to kill me or not. I couldn't say whether he was trying to hurt my daughter or not."

There is nothing in this statement or any other evidence in the case showing or tending to show that defendant, or his daughter, or any other member of his family was in impending peril of death or grievous harm at the hands of Ralls, which was essential to the right of defendant to invoke the doctrine of self-defense. Brewer v. State, 160 Ala 66, 49 So....