Kitchens v. State
Decision Date | 30 June 1943 |
Docket Number | 7 Div. 727. |
Citation | 14 So.2d 739,31 Ala.App. 239 |
Parties | KITCHENS v. STATE. |
Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Rehearing Denied Aug. 10, 1943.
Roberts & Cunningham, of Gadsden, for appellant.
Wm N. McQueen, Acting Atty. Gen., and John O. Harris, Asst Atty. Gen., for the State.
The appeal is from a conviction of manslaughter in the first degree.
The State's evidence established that the defendant made an unprovoked assault on the deceased, knocked him down, and then kicked him several times about the head and body.
The trial court, in defining manslaughter, correctly instructed the jury that "in manslaughter in the first degree there must be either a positive intention to kill, or an act of violence (from) which, ordinarily, in the usual course of events, death or great bodily harm may ensue." Reynolds v. State, 24 Ala.App. 249, 134 So. 815; Harrington v. State, 83 Ala. 9, 36 So. 425.
Under the conflicting evidence adduced, it was for the jury to determine the question of guilt and the degree of the homicide. Diamond v. State, 219 Ala. 674, 123 So. 55; Oliver v. State, 234 Ala. 460, 175 So. 305.
The proposition for our decision-and the only matter urged for revision by learned counsel-is as to the qualifications, vel non, of Dr. C. J. Rehling, of the State Toxicological Department, to give expert testimony in the case. That is, whether or not the trial court erred in permitting said witness to testify (over objection and exception of defendant) as to the result of an autopsy performed upon the body of the deceased, his findings and conclusions.
Following is the testimony presented to sustain the witness's qualifications (by Dr. Rehling):
"The Witness: No." The trial court ruled the witness to possess sufficient qualifications to state the result of the "cranial post mortem" performed by him upon the body of the deceased and what his "findings" were in regard thereto.
After having been permitted to detail the autopsical findings, the following appears to have been transacted:
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