Kissic v. State, 7 Div. 522

Decision Date10 March 1959
Docket Number7 Div. 522
Citation40 Ala.App. 178,110 So.2d 327
PartiesOnnie KISSIC v. STATE.
CourtAlabama Court of Appeals

Ralph Gaines, Jr., Talladega, and Beddow, Gwin & Embry and Roderick Beddow, Jr., Birmingham, for appellant.

John Patterson, Atty. Gen., and Edmon L. Rinehart, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

HARWOOD, Presiding Judge.

This appellant was originally indicted for murder in the first degree. His first trial resulted in a judgment of guilty of murder in the second degree.

This judgment was reversed by the Supreme Court, 266 Ala. 71, 94 So.2d 202.

In his second trial the appellant has again been adjudgd guilty of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to a term of ten years imprisonment in the penitentiary.

On the afternoon of 8 November 1955 Nile Collard, the deceased, stopped his automobile in front of the home of Herman Ragsdale, and attracted attention by sounding the horn of his car.

Ragsdale went to the car. He saw that Collard was bleeding about the head, and from a wound in his back. Ragsdale moved Collard from under the wheel, entered the car and drove at a high rate of speed to a hospital.

On this drive Collard stated he 'was cut to death' and he 'knew he was almost cut to death.'

Ragsdale asked Collard if he wanted to tell who had cut him and Collard stated that Curtis Harper had cut him and 'Onnie (appellant) helped him.'

Collard remained in the operating room about two hours, and died about six hours later.

Medical testimony showed that his main wound was in the back of his left chest and extended about 15 inches laterally around his body. The wound was gaped open about two and half inches, and the 8th rib, and part of the 7th rib had been severed.

Curtis Harper and the appellant Kissic were located by law enforcement officers at the home of Woodrow Williamson. A knife was taken from Harper. The knife had bloodstains, and a part of the point was missing from the point of the large blade. Kissic's clothing had red stains upon them.

A piece of metal about the size of the missing knife point was found in deceased's rib upon the autopsical examination by the State toxicologist.

The defense presented no evidence in the trial below.

At the conclusion of the court's oral instructions to the jury counsel for the appellant excepted to the court's failure to charge on manslaughter in the first degree.

Such an omission is no basis for a reviewable question. The party asserting injury by matters omitted from oral instructions must request special written instructions curing the omission. In the event such special instructions are refused, then the matter is presented to us for review. Tranholm v. State, 38 Ala.App. 57, 77 So.2d 491, and cases cited therein.

Further, it appears that even had a written request pertaining to manslaughter in the first degree have been tendered, the court would have been justified in refusing such request under the evidence before it.

In the prior appeal of this case, the Supreme Court held that that part of Collard's statement to Ragsdale that Curtis Harper cut me 'and Onnie...

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1 cases
  • Grace v. State
    • United States
    • Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
    • 30 Mayo 1972
    ...and the law says that this presumption does not obtain where 'the circumstances of the killing disprove malice.'' In Kissic v. State, 40 Ala.App. 178, 110 So.2d 327, the court 'Under the tendencies of the State's evidence the deceased met his death as a result of the use of a deadly weapon,......

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