Fondren v. State
| Decision Date | 03 June 1920 |
| Docket Number | 8 Div. 231 |
| Citation | 204 Ala. 451,86 So. 71 |
| Parties | FONDREN v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied June 30, 1920
Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; W.W. Haralson, Judge.
Oscar Fondren was indicted for murder in the first degree convicted of murder in the second degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Milo Moody, of Scottsboro, for appellant.
J.Q Smith, Atty. Gen., and Lamar Field, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
If the appellant committed the homicide for which he was tried and convicted, and of this fact under the evidence there is little, if any, room for doubt and was at the time legally responsible, he was guilty of a most dastardly and heinous murder.
The litigated issues arose under his plea of "not guilty by reason of insanity," and much evidence was offered tending to sustain this plea. On the evidence, as offered, he requested the court in writing to give the following instruction:
"If the jury find from the evidence that the defendant killed deceased while in an insane condition, caused by disease of the mind, which disease deprived him of the power to resist the impulse to do the act, then he would not be guilty by reason of insanity."
As worded, the charge is open to the criticism that the "insane condition" referred to the deceased rather than the defendant, and as thus written, if not otherwise faulty, was not such a clear exposition of the law as that the court was bound to give it. The charge, however undertakes to state the rule as applicable to one who, though insane, is capable of perceiving the difference between right and wrong, yet is laboring under the duress of the disease to such extent as to destroy his power to choose the right and abstain from the wrong, and pretermits the essential element that the disease of the brain must be the sole cause, and the crime the direct product or effect of such disease. Parsons v. State, 81 Ala. 577, 596, 597, 2 So. 854.
The witness W.W. Fondren was offered as a nonexpert to show the defendant was insane, and before he was examined as to the facts and circumstances upon which he based his opinion was asked, "Do you think you know whether your son is sane or insane?" The objection to the question was properly sustained. Parsons v. State, supra; Russell v. State (App.) 87 So. 221; Ford v. State, 71 Ala. 385; Caddell v. State, 129 Ala. 57, 30 So. 76.
It was permissible for the state to ask the witness Fondren if he had not served a term in the penitentiary. Moore v. State, 12 Ala.App. 243, 67 So. 789.
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Ledbetter v. State
...answer could have included any offense for the conviction of which a service in the penitentiary was imposed. In Fondren v. State, 204 Ala. 451, 86 So. 71, 72, Supreme Court held: 'It was permissible for the state to ask the witness Fondren if he had not served a term in the penitentiary.' ......
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...in regard to the defendant 'having a spell.' Questions to which objections were sustained called for hearsay testimony. Fondren v. State, 204 Ala. 451, 86 So. 71. The accused, in support of her plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, sought to prove that other members of her immediate fam......
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...and opinion from the facts indicated. Ragland v. State, 125 Ala. 12, 27 So. 983; Jones v. State, 181 Ala. 63, 61 So. 434; Fondren v. State, 204 Ala. 451, 86 So. 71; Lambert v. State, 207 Ala. 190, 92 So. In the cross-examination by the solicitor of the witness Greer, for the purpose of brin......