Jim Red v. State
| Decision Date | 08 December 1910 |
| Citation | 53 So. 908,169 Ala. 6 |
| Parties | JIM RED v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from Criminal Court, Jefferson County; S. L. Weaver, Judge.
Jim Red, alias, was convicted of violating the prohibition law and he appeals. Affirmed.
See also, 52 So. 885.
Allen & Bell, for appellant.
Alexander M. Garber, Atty. Gen., for the State.
The Constitution of 1901 prohibits the institution of prosecutions for final trials as for felonies, except by indictment. While it authorizes the issue of warrants of arrest, and preliminary trials without indictment in felony cases, it does not allow final prosecutions as for indictable offenses, by information, except as is otherwise provided in the Constitution. One of these other provisos in the Constitution reads as follows: "Provided, that in cases of misdemeanor, the Legislature may by law dispense with a grand jury and authorize such prosecutions and proceedings before justices of the peace or such other inferior courts as may be by law established." Const. § 8. This is certainly authority for the Legislature to create the inferior and criminal courts of Jefferson county, and to provide for the commencement of prosecutions in those courts for misdemeanors. Such inferior courts, when created for this purpose, can certainly be given power and jurisdiction to institute prosecutions otherwise than by indictment by grand jury. This much is expressly authorized by the Constitution.
The record shows a complaint made by B. G. Chew, before H. B. Abernathy, judge of the inferior court of Birmingham, charging the defendant with a misdemeanor, a violation of the prohibition law. The affidavit or complaint made by the affiant is substantially in the form provided in the Code for indictment in such cases, and in the form provided for affidavits, except that, instead of showing that affiant had probable cause for believing, and did believe, that the offense named had been committed and that the defendant was guilty thereof, it alleges directly and specifically that the defendant committed the offense named. This court has often held such affidavits to be sufficient. (The writer is of a different opinion; but having fully expressed his views in dissenting opinions in other cases, and the Code having been readopted with the construction which the majority place upon these sections, he forbears to further press his views upon the subject.)
Upon this complaint a warrant was issued by the magistrate, and made returnable to the judge of the criminal court of Jefferson county, in which court he was tried and convicted upon this affidavit. The statutes creating the criminal court of Jefferson county and the acts amendatory thereof provided for a jury trial in such court, but...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Young v. City of Hokes Bluff
...of description of the offense, and altogether with some averments necessary and observed in indictments." Compare Jim Red v. State, 169 Ala. 6, 8-9, 53 So. 908 (1910), wherein Justice Mayfield, writing for the court, observed, "This court has often held such [conclusory] affidavits to be su......
-
Mahaley v. State
...be 'magistrates'). See Herring v. State, 158 Ala. 31, 48 So. 476, overruled by Higdon v. Stuckey, 169 Ala. 148, 53 So. 301; Redd v. State, 169 Ala. 6, 53 So. 908; Clewis v. State, 171 Ala. 46, 54 So. 540. In Holloman v. State, 37 Ala.App. 599, 74 So.2d 612, 614, we 'The record affirmatively......
-
Kirk v. State
...to make the demand was a waiver of trial by jury, a waiver he could not subsequently of his own volition retract.' See also Redd v. State, 169 Ala. 6, 9, 53 So. 908; Ireland v. State, 11 Ala.App. 155, 65 So. What difference is there between waiving a trial by jury altogether and then trying......
- Ireland v. State