Eldridge v. State, 4 Div. 361.

• Decision Date: 10 May 1945
• Docket Number: 4 Div. 361.
• Citation: 22 So.2d 713,247 Ala. 153
• Parties: ELDRIDGE v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

22 So.2d 713

247 Ala. 153

ELDRIDGE v. STATE.

4 Div. 361.

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 10, 1945

Rehearing Denied July 26, 1945.

W. L. Lee and Alto V. Lee, III, both of Dothan, for appellant.

Wm N. McQueen, Acting Atty. Gen., and John O. Harris, Asst Atty. Gen., for the State.

SIMPSON Justice.

The defendant shot and killed one Henderson about ten days after she had obtained a divorce from her former husband, Eldridge.

According to her confession to the police officer, she obtained the divorce because of deceased's promise to marry her if she would do so, but after her divorcement he refused to carry out his bargain, and began keeping company with another woman. This apparently was the onset of the circumstances culminating in the fatal event.

There was a special plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Where this defense is interposed much latitude of proof is given both the State and the defendant regarding the acts conditions and conduct of the accused. Birchfield v. State, 217 Ala. 225, 115 So. 297; Wharton, Crim. Evidence, 11th Ed., Vol. 1, § 318.

Subject to the wise discretion of the trial court to limit the scope of the examination within due bounds, it is competent to show any circumstance or condition calculated to naturally or reasonably affect defendant's mental poise at the time of the homicide. Barnes v. State, Ala. App., 14 So.2d 242; Wharton, Crim. Evidence, 11th Ed., Vol. 1, § 318.

Following is an apposite statement of the principle: 'As human conditions of every sort are created or influenced by external environment, so too the diseased mental condition which we term insanity may be precipitated, intensified, or otherwise affected by external events coming to the apprehension of the person. Accordingly, circumstances calculated to induce this mental condition may always be admitted to evidence the probability of such affection; the only limitation is that the circumstance be in itself capable in some degree of producing such an effect, that it came to the person's knowledge, and that some further foundation for probability be laid by other evidence that there was a diseased mental condition.' 2 Wigmore on Evidence, § 231, page 20.

In the light of these guiding principles, the trail court will not be placed in error for permitting defendant's said former husband, who gave testimony in support of her plea of insanity, to be cross-examined regarding his alleged mistreatment of her just prior to their separation and divorce. It cannot be denied but that the nature and gravity of this alleged cruelty to her might reasonably have been calculated to affect her mental status, and was a circumstance (though only a circumstance--Boswell v. State, 63 Ala. 307, 35 Am. Rep. 20) to be considered by the jury on the issue of insanity.

Where insanity is invoked as a defense to crime, under the wide latitude rule adverted to above, it was also competent for the State to cross-examine the witness Rutledge relative to the contract of settlement signed by himself and defendant when the divorce was undertaken, and as to whether in his opinion the defendant was sane or insane when she signed it. This act of hers and her mental status at the time, so shortly before the homicide, were clearly admissible as shedding light upon her mental condition at the time she shot Henderson, and the trial court correctly so ruled.

Error is also sought to be rested upon the action of the court in allowing the State to introduce certain...