Johnson v. State

Decision Date25 May 1971
Docket Number3 Div. 62
Citation248 So.2d 763,46 Ala.App. 725
PartiesCharles JOHNSON v. STATE.
CourtAlabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Michael S. Lottman, Montgomery, for appellant.

MacDonald Gallion, Atty. Gen., and James C. Heard, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

PRICE, Presiding Judge.

This is an appeal from a conviction for the offense of larceny of an automobile of the value of $900.00.

The evidence for the state tends to show that about 1:30 A.M., October 5, 1969, W. N. Stoddard and a companion, Don Cooper, were returning to the parking lot of their apartment house in Cooper's automobile when Mr. Stoddard observed his automobile backing out of the lot. Mr. Cooper stopped his car and Mr. Stoddard began running toward his automobile. The driver of Mr. Stoddard's car attempted to drive between the Cooper car and a parked car. The left fender of the Stoddard car struck the fender of the Cooper automobile.

Mr. Cooper unlocked the door of the driver's side of the Stoddard car and pulled the driver out of the car and the two men held him until the police arrived. Mr. Stoddard and Mr. Cooper positively identified the appellant as the driver of Stoddard's automobile.

The defendant testified he left a party on Caffey Drive in Montgomery to walk to a filling station on Mobile Road to buy cigarettes and was returning to the party when a man he had never seen before stopped him and said he was having trouble with his car and asked him to sit in it and hold the accelerator. The stranger went across the street to a phone booth, and defendant had been sitting in the car about thirty seconds when Mr. Cooper, and Mr. Stoddard drove up at a high rate of speed and struck the automobile he was sitting in. Defendant testified he did not have a driver's license and did not know how to drive and that the car remained stationary.

The defendant's mother testified her son did not know how to drive an automobile.

The evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction. The motion for a new trial was properly refused.

Appellant insists it was reversible error to deny his motion to be allowed to take a lie detector test. The fact of the taking of lie detector tests and the result of such tests are not admissible as evidence in this state. Wilcutt v. State, 41 Ala.App. 25, 123 So.2d 193, cert. den. 271 Ala. 315, 123 So.2d 203.

We are unable to review the contention of appellant that he was not represented by counsel at his preliminary hearing. The record contains no...

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6 cases
  • Wynn v. State, 7 Div. 946
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
    • August 24, 1982
    ...376 (Ala.1981); Flurry v. State, 52 Ala.App. 64, 289 So.2d 632, cert. denied, 292 Ala. 720, 289 So.2d 644 (1973); Johnson v. State, 46 Ala.App. 725, 248 So.2d 763 (Cr.App.1971). Although there have been numerous claims to the greater accuracy 3 of the polygraph since the Frye court determin......
  • Bracewell v. State
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
    • January 30, 1979
    ...to grant a mistrial, citing Flurry v. State, 52 Ala.App. 64, 289 So.2d 632, cert. denied 291 Ala. 720, 289 So.2d 644; Johnson v. State, 46 Ala.App. 725, 248 So.2d 763; and Wilcutt v. State, 41 Ala.App. 25, 123 So.2d 193. While these cases are applicably cited for the principle that the taki......
  • Smith v. State
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
    • June 13, 2014
    ...989 So.2d at 1177 (quoting Bostick v. City of Gadsden, 642 So.2d 469, 471 (Ala.Civ.App.1993) ); see also Johnson v. State, 46 Ala.App. 725, 725, 248 So.2d 763, 764 (Ala.Crim.App.1971) (stating that “[t]he fact of the taking of lie detector tests and the result of such tests are not admissib......
  • Flurry v. State
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
    • September 25, 1973
    ...into evidence. Wilcutt v. State, 41 Ala.App. 25, 123 So.2d 193; Graham v. State, 46 Ala.App. 608, 246 So.2d 675; Johnson v. State, 46 Ala.App. 725, 248 So.2d 763. 'The courts almost uniformly reject the results of lie detector tests when offered in evidence for the purpose of establishing t......
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