Hodge v. State

• Decision Date: 11 January 1893
• Parties: HODGE v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

12 So. 164

97 Ala. 37

HODGE v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 11, 1893

Appeal from circuit court, Escambia county; John P. Hubbard, Judge.

Amos Hodge was convicted of murder in the first degree, and appeals. Reversed.

The evidence introduced by the state tending to prove the commission of the crime by the defendant was purely circumstantial. The facts and circumstances are sufficiently brought out in the opinion. The rulings of the court upon the evidence, and as to the argument of the solicitor, are also sufficiently stated in the opinion, and need not be noticed here in detail. Upon the introduction of all the evidence the defendant asked the court, among other things, to give the following written charges: (1) "The court charges the jury that the evidence must satisfy them, beyond all reasonable doubt, of the existence of other facts necessary to constitute the offense charged." (2) "The court further charges the jury that a 'reasonable doubt' is defined to be a doubt for which a reason can be given." The court refused to give each of these charges, and the defendant duly excepted.

J. W Posey, Sr., for appellant.

Wm. L Martin, Atty. Gen., for the State.

HARALSON J.

1. Rose Stanback was shot and killed in Brewton, by some unknown person, about 8 or 9 o'clock on a Sunday evening, in February, 1892. Some buckshot were found to have entered a plank in a house near where she was found, and about 25 steps away were afterwards discovered tracks of a person who wore shoes, and between the tracks and house were found "some colored calico scraps or rags, blackened as if shot with powder, two in number, one having several holes through it and some soft, thin paper." These were produced, and offered in evidence. The defendant objected to the evidence but the court admitted it, and he excepted. By itself, and disconnected with something else, to make it relevant, this evidence did not tend to show that defendant, any more than any other person, did the shooting. We infer, however, that it was offered and admitted with the expectation of its being made relevant by other evidence to be offered in the further progress of the trial, since we find such evidence was offered, as follows: The evidence shows that the sheriff and others, several days after the defendant had been arrested and confined in jail, went to the house of defendant, and, looking through, found a double barrel shotgun, put in a place, as if to conceal it, with one barrel empty, and the other loaded; that they drew the load, and found it contained buckshot and some dark calico rags and tissue paper wadding, similar in appearance to the rags and paper picked up near the place of the killing, which had been admitted in evidence, and these, also, were offered and introduced in evidence, against defendant's objection and exception. This evidence was clearly competent, and rendered that about the other rags and paper before introduced also relevant, as tending to connect the defendant with the shooting. Mattison v. State, 55 Ala. 224; Com. v. Webster, 52 Amer. Dec. 727. And each of these criminative circumstances becomes more pertinent, when it was afterwards shown that the marshal of the town, sheriff, and the clerk of the court, each known to the defendant, went together to the jail, taking with them the gun which had been found in defendant's house, and asked him if it was his gun, and he said it was. The witnesses by whom this admission was shown testified that they made no threats nor offered any inducements to defendant to procure said confession, and that it was voluntary. The defendant's counsel objected to this evidence, on the ground that it was not a voluntary confession, but it was admitted, and he excepted. There was no error in its admission. 3 Brick. Dig. p. 285, §§ 552, 553.

2. Any traces or marks at or near the scene of the crime, about the time of its commission, indicative of the presence or proximity of the accused, are always admissible as facts tending to connect the defendant with its commission. The character of footprints, found where the crime is discovered leading to or from the place of the crime, and their correspondence with the feet of the accused, or with shoes worn by him, or found in his possession, we have held, are admissible in evidence to identify him as the guilty agent. Young v. State, 68 Ala. 569. A witness may be allowed to...