Ison v. State
| Decision Date | 05 May 1967 |
| Docket Number | 3 Div. 253 |
| Parties | In re Gene Robert ISON v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
MacDonald Gallion, Atty. Gen., and Robt. F. Miller, Asst. Atty. Gen., for petitioner.
Ralph Smith and John Patterson, Montgomery, opposed.
This defendant in the court below stands convicted of the offense of manslaughter in the first degree under an indictment charging him with murder in the first degree.
The judgment was reversed by the Court of Appeals. The state invoked our review by writ of certiorari which was timely granted.
The Court of Appeals based its reversal of the judgment on the insufficiency of the predicate for the admission of an inculpatory statement made by the defendant to M. E. Bailey, a police officer of the City of Montgomery.
The testimony of Officer Bailey as to the circumstances of the making of the statement is in no wise contradicted by any evidence presented below, including that of the defendant.
Where there is no dispute about the facts, we may examine the record for a more complete understanding of those facets of the record treated in the opinion of the Court of Appeals. Johnson v. State, 277 Ala. 655, 173 So.2d 824, and cases therein cited.
Officer Bailey, to whom the inculpatory statement was made, testified that he and his partner, Officer W. C. Brown, drove to the scene of the shooting. They stopped behind a car.
It would appear that the reasonable inference to be drawn from Bailey's above testimony is that he went to the automobile in which the deceased was lying, while Officer Brown was contacting the police headquarters over the police car radio.
As the excerpt of the record set forth in the opinion of the Court of Appeals shows, the defendant approached Officer Bailey with a pistol in his hand, and in response to Bailey's question if he had done the shooting, made the inculpatory statement that he had shot the deceased.
While it is true that the District Attorney did, in one question, ask Bailey if Ison's approach to him, and his reply, were made right after 'you all had gotten to the scene.' (Emphasis ours.) We do not think that this isolated question and answer indicates anything more than that the contact between Bailey and Ison took place very shortly after the arrival of Bailey and Brown at the scene of the shooting. It does not indicate that Brown was present at this time, particularly in view of Bailey's testimony as to the circumstances. The remaining questions by the District Attorney, as set forth by the Court of Appeals, show that the District Attorney so understood the situation as evidenced by his repeated use of the word 'you,' rather than 'you all,' in all other instances.
As repeatedly stated in the opinions of this court and of the Court of Appeals, prima facie a confession is presumed to be involuntary, and there must be evidence addressed circumstances affirmatively diclose the this presumption and showing that the confession was made without the influence of either hope or fear, Unless the attending circumstances affirmatively disclose the voluntariness of the confession. Rudolph v. State, 275 Ala. 115, 152 So.2d 662, cert. den. 375 U.S. 88., 84 S.Ct. 155, 11 L.Ed.2d 119; Duncan v. State, 278 Ala. 145,...
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