Mitchell v. State
| Decision Date | 17 May 1904 |
| Citation | 140 Ala. 118,37 So. 76 |
| Parties | MITCHELL v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from City Court of Montgomery; William H. Thomas, Judge.
Patsy Mitchell was convicted of arson, and appeals. Reversed.
The appellant in this case Patsy Mitchell, was indicted and tried for arson in the first degree, for willfully setting fire to or burning a dwelling house in which there was at the time a human being, and was convicted of arson in the first degree and sentenced to the penitentiary for 10 years. The facts of the case relative to the rulings of the trial court on the evidence which are reviewed on the present appeal are sufficiently stated in the opinion. Upon the introduction of all the evidence, the defendant requested the court to give to the jury the following written charge, and duly excepted to the court's refusal to give the same as asked "The court charges the jury that a reasonable doubt is a doubt for which a reason can be given."
W. S Reese, for appellant.
Massey Wilson, Atty. Gen., for the State.
Defendant was convicted on an indictment charging her with burning the house of Sue Harris. On the trial, after the introduction of circumstantial evidence having a tendency to show that the house of Harris was in the nighttime set on fire by defendant and partially burned, the state was, against objection allowed to introduce evidence to show that on the same night and near the same time of that burning, the house of one Murphey, which stood about 450 yards from the house of Harris, was intentionally burned, and to show further that, after that fire, tracks of a woman's shoes, of the number worn by defendant, were found leading from Murphey's. A rule applicable in criminal prosecutions generally renders inadmissible evidence of any offense other than that for which the prosecution is had. To this rule there are exceptions, such as are mentioned in Gassenheimer v. State, 52 Ala. 313, and in Curtis v. State, 78 Ala. 12, in which latter case it was said: "When it is material to show the intent with which the act charged was committed, to illustrate its criminality, or to identify the accused as the person who committed the act, such evidence is admissible." The jury was instructed "not to consider the evidence as to the burning of Murphey's house, except so far as it might tend to show a guilty agency or intent in the burning of the house of Harris," and there was evidence that defendant, having...
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...Leland, 73 Hun 162, 25 N.Y.S. 943; Hill v. State, 22 Tex.App. 579, 3 S.W. 764. 'It is said in the annotation to Mitchell v. State, 140 Ala. 118, 37 So. 76, 103 Am.St.Rep. 17: 'When the previous judgment arose in a case in which the state or commonwealth was the prosecutor or plaintiff and t......
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