Haynes v. State
Decision Date | 12 October 1982 |
Docket Number | 1 Div. 410 |
Citation | 424 So.2d 669 |
Parties | Jackie Curtis HAYNES v. STATE. |
Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
G. Wayne Ashbee of Hall, Friedman, Ashbee & Laden, Mobile, for appellant.
Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and Leura J. Garrett, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The defendant was indicted and convicted for rape in the first degree under Alabama Code 1975, Section 13A-6-61(3). He was sentenced as an habitual offender to life imprisonment without parole. Two issues are presented on appeal.
The act changing the number of jury strikes in a criminal case so as to give the State and the accused an equal number of strikes is not an ex post facto law as applied to the defendant.
The crime occurred and the defendant was indicted in 1981. At that time Alabama Code 1975, Section 12-16-100 was in effect and provided that the defendant would strike two prospective jurors and the district attorney would strike one. This section was amended in April of 1982 to provide one-for-one jury strikes. Now the defendant and the State strike alternately with each having only one strike.
The defendant argues that this decrease in his number of jury strikes works a substantial detriment to the accused and falls within the constitutional prohibition of ex post facto laws. A similar issue was considered by our Supreme Court in South v. State, 86 Ala. 617, 619, 6 So. 52 (1889), where it was held that a new statute reducing the number of peremptory challenges allowed in a criminal case applies to prosecutions for offenses committed prior to its passage:
What our Supreme Court said in South foreshadowed the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 (1977).
The rule is summarized in 16A Am.Jur.2d Constitutional Law, Section 648 (1979).
...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Hubbard v. State
...cert. denied, 428 So.2d 148 (Ala.), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1137, 103 S.Ct. 3122, 17 L.Ed.2d 1374 (1983); Haynes v. State, 424 So.2d 669 (Ala.Cr.App.1982); South v. State, 86 Ala. 617, 6 So. 52 (1889). We find no merit in this Appellant contends that his conviction under § 13-11-2(a)(13) vio......
-
Lynn v. State, 4 Div. 183
...22, of the Alabama Constitution of 1901. This court has previously addressed this precise issue in a similar context in Haynes v. State, 424 So.2d 669 (Ala.Crim.App.1982), cert. denied, Ex parte Haynes (Ala.1983). Relying on Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 (1......
-
Holsemback v. State, 7 Div. 156
...A law changing the number of jury strikes in a criminal case is procedural and does not affect matters of substance. Haynes v. State, 424 So.2d 669, 670-72 (Ala.Cr.App.1982), cited as proper authority in Ex Parte Cofer, 440 So.2d 1121 (Ala.1983). See also Opinion of the Justices No. 229, 34......
-
Sexton v. State
...than to allay the child's fear of testifying. In this respect, the situation was somewhat akin to that presented in Haynes v. State, 424 So.2d 669 (Ala.Cr.App.1982), a prosecution for the rape of an eleven-year-old girl. In Haynes, the trial court addressed the prosecutrix as "sugar," said ......