Hill v. State
| Decision Date | 26 June 1979 |
| Docket Number | 6 Div. 678 |
| Citation | 378 So.2d 249 |
| Parties | Jerry James HILL, alias v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
Michael L. Chambers, Galese & Chambers, Birmingham, for appellant.
Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and Willis E. Isaac, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State, appellee.
Appellant was convicted of rape and sentenced to imprisonment for life.
He was indicted under the name of "Jerry James Hill, alias Jerry James Hall." The evidence shows without dispute that his name is Jerry James Hall. There is no evidence that he was ever known by the name of Jerry James Hill, but no contention is made that such fact furnishes a basis for a claim of prejudicial error. This accords with the rule that where an accused is indicted under two or more names connected by "alias," such an averment is supported by evidence that he was known or called by any one of the names. Evans v. State, 62 Ala. 6 (1878); Harris v. State, 19 Ala.App. 484, 98 So. 316 (1923); Tucker v. State, 43 Ala.App. 163, 184 So.2d 366 (1966); 42 C.J.S. Indictments and Information § 258.
According to the testimony of the alleged victim of the crime, a young married woman, she went to Sears Store in downtown Birmingham on December 29, 1975, about 6:30 P.M., parked the automobile she was driving in Sears parking lot, but did not lock the passenger's side of the automobile because it had been damaged to such an extent that it could not be locked. After finishing shopping, she returned to the automobile and drove off. Shortly after she left the parking lot, a man came up from the rear floor board and ordered her to drive to a cemetery near Fountain Heights, on the outskirts of downtown Birmingham. Upon arriving at the cemetery, the victim was ordered by the man to hand over her purse and rings; he then commanded her to go to the Fountain Heights Recreation Center, where he raped her, after she had pleaded with him not to do so. Thereupon, the attacker fled on foot and disappeared over a nearby hill. The victim testified positively that the man, previously a stranger to her, was the defendant.
Soon after the victim arrived at her home and notified her husband what had happened, her father-in-law drove the automobile from the victim's house to the garage of the Birmingham Police Department, where it and its contents were examined for fingerprints and palm prints. By the testimony of expert witnesses, it was shown that the palm print lifted from one of the "articles" which, according to the victim's testimony, had been in the automobile "a week or so," matched a known palm print of defendant.
There was other evidence to corroborate the victim's testimony as to sexual molestation, the force applied, the lack of consent by the victim, and the identity of defendant, but the above suffices to disclose that a jury issue was presented as to his guilt. No contention to the contrary is made by appellant, and we see no need to go into further details as to the evidence, except to state that defendant did not testify and there was evidence presented by him tending to show an alibi.
Defendant was indicted on July 21, 1976, but was not apprehended until June 14, 1977, under circumstances stated by Sergeant Albert Wallace, a detective in the Homicide Division of the Birmingham Police Department, in part as follows:
Thereupon the court conducted a hearing out of the presence of the jury. Upon return of the jury to the jury box, the testimony of Sgt. Wallace continued:
A major insistence of appellant is that in allowing the State to show that as Sergeant Wallace interrogated the defendant, upon stopping the automobile in which defendant was riding, as to who defendant was and receiving an answer by defendant that "he was Clarence Jones" and that "he was not Jerry Hall," without prior instructions and warnings as to his Constitutional rights to an attorney and to be protected against self-incrimination, is in conflict with what was held in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 87 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1965).
There seems to be little disagreement between the parties that the solution to the issue hinges on whether the particular question was asked and defendant's answer was given while he was undergoing police custodial interrogation so as to make the statements of an accused inadmissible against him unless all phases of the Miranda predicate are firmly laid.
The proliferation of the problems that arose within three years after Miranda on the single part thereof, the one dealing with the matter of what constitutes an in-custody interrogation, is plainly noted in the existence of one hundred and thirty pages of citations, quotations from cases and comments in Annotation, Custodial Interrogation, 31 A.L.R.3d 565-696. Even so, we find few, if any, authoritative cases that can be said to be conclusive on the particular issue now before us, and the parties have brought none to our attention. Harrison v. State, Ala., 358 So.2d 763, Rev'g Ala.Cr.App., 358 So.2d 759, chiefly relied upon by appellant, helps neither appellant nor appellee. The case did involve the question of the admissibility of evidence that defendant gave a name different from his own in answer to an officer's question, but the axis on appeal was whether the point had been sufficiently raised in the trial court, and the Supreme Court held that it was. The conclusion that the interrogation was custodial was largely based on express testimony of a witness for the State that he "took them (including defendant) into custody" before the interrogation and the position taken by prosecuting attorney on the trial that defendant was "under custodial interrogation." We have no similar support for such a conclusion here.
Countless progenies of Miranda involve problems that seem to have no end as to the applicability of the express exception to the exclusionary mandate of the authority to be found in general "on-the-scene questioning as to facts surrounding a crime or other general questioning of citizens in the fact finding process." The author of the A.L.R.3d Annotation, Supra, has helpfully categorized the various places of police interrogations and labeled one category as "On the street" interrogation. The list of cases cited, some holding that the particular interrogation was in-custody and some that it was not, demonstrates the unanimously recognized principle that the place at which the interrogations was made does not in and of itself determine whether it was custodial. However, the variety of circumstances of on-the-street interrogations tends to narrow the search for precedents in a case in which an on-the-street interrogation is under consideration, which is true here.
Without attempting the virtually impossible task of citing and discussing the multitudinous reported cases on the subject, which doubtless even today continue their incessant flow, we find much in favor of the admissibility of the testimony, and little, if any, to the contrary.
In United States v. Gibson, 392 F.2d 373 (4th Cir. 1968) the interrogating officer had received an anonymous tip that a certain person was driving a particular described automobile which the informant believed had been stolen. The tip was partly corroborated by a report that the vehicle had been lost or stolen. The officer located the automobile parked in front of a tavern, entered the tavern and asked the defendant customer to step aside. Upon his doing so, the officer...
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Ervin v. State
...Miranda rule. Hammons, supra. Moreover, it is not error to ask a defendant his name before giving him the Miranda warnings. Hill v. State, 378 So.2d 249 (Ala.Cr.App.), cert. denied, 378 So.2d 256 (Ala.1979); Lee v. State, 364 So.2d 687 (Ala.Cr.App. 1978). We find that appellant's unsolicite......
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