Gordon v. State
| Decision Date | 18 January 1949 |
| Docket Number | 6 Div. 695. |
| Citation | 34 Ala.App. 278,41 So.2d 608 |
| Parties | GORDON v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Rehearing Denied Feb. 8, 1949.
Beddow & Jones and G. Ernest Jones, Jr. all of Birmingham, for appellant.
A A. Carmichael, Atty. Gen., and Bernard F. Sykes, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
This appellant was indicted for murder in the first degree convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to the penitentiary.
After her arrest appellant was interrogated by police officers, the Coroner of Jefferson County also being present. The voluntary character of appellant's responses to the questions was established. This interrogation was taken down in shorthand by a stenographer, and later transcribed into a typewritten report, which was signed by the appellant. The answers of the appellant to many of the questions propounded to her during this interrogation were highly confessory in character.
Mr. C. F. Batchelder, one of the police officers present at appellant's interrogation, a witness for the State, testified that he turned the signed copy of the report over to the Solicitor's office. He could not say however whether this signed report had been read to appellant, or by her, before she signed it.
Mr. Batchelder was handed some papers and stated that the same were a copy of the signed report he had turned over to the Solicitor's office.
Mr. Batchelder further testified that while appellant was being interrogated the questions and answers were taken down in shorthand by some young lady. At a later time she turned over to Mr. Batchelder the copy he had just been handed by the Solicitor. At that time he read over the report, and found it was an accurate report of the questions and answers.
Over appellant's objection and exception the report was admitted into evidence as an exhibit, and then read to the jury, the court stating:
In our opinion the court's ruling in this premise was erroneous.
According to Mr. Batchelder, one of the transcriptions prepared by the stenographer was signed by the appellant. Whether it was read over to appellant, or whether she read it over, before signing it, is left in doubt. This point is not of importance in our present consideration, for clearly, the signed copy of the interrogation was not offered, but an unsigned copy, we presume a carbon copy. No attempt was made to account for the non production of the signed written statement. Primarily the admission of this unsigned copy over appellant's objection therefore violated the best evidence rule.
Another reason why this written statement should not have been received in evidence is that it was merely a report of what the stenographer alleged the appellant had said, and but hearsay. Permitting the witness Batchelder to affirm the correctness of the stenographer's report in no way added to its verity, but merely compounded its hearsay character. Woods v. Postal Telegraph-Cable Co., 205 Ala. 236, 87 So. 681, 27 A.L.R. 834.
We of course are not dealing with the admission of a properly certified copy of a transcript of evidence made by an official court r...
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