Everett v. State

• Decision Date: 09 May 1933
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 465.
• Citation: 148 So. 171,25 Ala.App. 432
• Parties: EVERETT v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

148 So. 171

25 Ala.App. 432

EVERETT v. STATE.

6 Div. 465.

Court of Appeals of Alabama

May 9, 1933

Appeal from Circuit Court, Winston County; R. L. Blanton, Judge.

Will alias J. W. Everett was convicted of operating a motor vehicle without a license tag, and he appeals.

Reversed and remanded.

J. W Everett, pro se.

Thos E. Knight, Jr., Atty. Gen., for the State.

BRICKEN Presiding Judge.

Any person charged with, or on trial for a criminal offense, is entitled to a fair and impartial trial, for the law is, that no person shall be accused, arrested, detained, or tried except in the manner and form provided by law. It makes no difference how guilty a person might be, these sacred and valuable constitutional and statutory rights of the citizen cannot be disregarded by trial courts, over the objection of the accused, and such unlawful acts affirmed, on the ground that the citizen was not injured by thus being deprived of his rights. It is difficult to understand how it is possible that a citizen is not injured when he is deprived of such rights. As stated in the case of Patterson v. State, 202 Ala. 65, 68, 79 So. 459, 462: "The guilty, as well as the innocent, have a right to be tried in accordance with the law of the land. The innocent ought not to be punished, and the law does not intend or provide that they shall be punished; and as to the guilty, the law provides that such shall not be punished except in the mode and manner provided by the law."

In the instant case state witness C. L. Webb was permitted to testify, over the objection and exception of appellant, as to an alleged confession of the defendant relative to his ownership of the truck in question. No semblance of a predicate was laid or even attempted. The evidence should not have been allowed for confessions are prima facie involuntary and inadmissible and before being allowed to go to the jury in a criminal case it must affirmatively be shown to the satisfaction of the court that they were made voluntarily. Minton v. State, 20 Ala. App. 176, 101 So. 169. Here, the objection interposed was based upon the grounds that it was irrelevant, incompetent, immaterial, and illegal-a general objection-this objection, though general, was sufficient. Poarch v. State, 19 Ala. App. 161, 95 So. 781; McAlpine v. State, 117 Ala. 93, 23 So. 130. In the Poarch Case, supra, the court said: "A general objection to testimony as to confessions of defenda...