Odom v. State

• Decision Date: 21 December 1911
• Citation: 174 Ala. 4,56 So. 913
• Parties: ODOM v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

56 So. 913

174 Ala. 4

ODOM v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

December 21, 1911

Appeal from City Court of Mobile; O. J. Semmes, Judge.

J Lawrence Odom, alias, etc., was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Affirmed.

See also, 55 So. 820.

Webb &amp McAlpine, for appellant.

R. C. Brickell, Atty. Gen., and W. L. Martin, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

SOMERVILLE J.

The appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to death. The evidence showed without dispute that he was guilty of murder in the first degree, unless he was mentally irresponsible, as pleaded by him.

In impaneling the jury for appellant's trial in the court below, one of the veniremen stated on his voir dire: "I have never believed in the sanity of the man [the defendant]. I don't believe the man is a sane man." He further stated that his opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant was "fixed." The trial court properly ruled that this venireman was subject to challenge by the state for cause, and his rejection from the panel cannot be complained of by appellant.

On a former appeal in this cause, it was ruled that appellant's witness Humphrey could not testify as an expert on insanity, his only qualification being that he had handled a great many insane persons, and had observed and studied them in the course of their transfer by him from Mobile to Tuscaloosa and other points. Odom v. State, 55 So. 820. On the second trial, in addition to this qualification, this witness stated that he had "lately read medical works on the subject, and studied in that way." This did not transform him into an expert. As a general rule, only medical men--that is, persons licensed by law to practice the profession of medicine--can testify as experts on the question of insanity; and the propriety of this general limitation is too patent to permit of discusson. See Tullis v. Kidd, 12 Ala. 648; 12 A. & E. Ency. Law, 452.

An exception may perhaps be recognized where the witness has made a protracted and systematic study of mental science and disease under approved conditions, as in Re Toomes, 54 Cal. 509, 35 Am. Rep. 83. In any case, the competency of an alleged expert is a question addressed to the sound discretion of the trial judge. Parrish v. State, 139 Ala. 16, 36 So. 1012. The witness Humphrey, therefore, could testify to his opinion as to the defendant's insanity, if at all, as a lay witness.

The rules prescribing the qualifications required of a lay witness offered for this purpose have been frequently stated by this court. Dominick v. Randolph, 124 Ala. 557, 27 So. 481; Ford v. State, 71 Ala. 385; Parrish v. State, 139 Ala. 16, 36 So. 1012; Braham v. State, 143 Ala. 28, 38 So. 919, and cases therein cited. Having regard to the type of insanity exhibited, and the more or less obvious and intelligible character of its symptoms, the witness must be shown to have had an acquaintance with the subject of inquiry sufficiently intimate and long continued to enable him to form a reasonably accurate and trustworthy opinion as to the mental condition of such subject.

Whether the qualifications of the witness are sufficient is, of course, a question to be determined by the trial court; and the very nature of the test requires that its determination in particular cases be confided to the discretion of the trial court, which will not be revised on appeal except for very palpable abuse. Ford v. State; Parrish v. State; Braham v. State, supra.

This witness Humphrey states that he had known and known of appellant for 15 or 20 years, and lived in the neighborhood 4 or 5 miles away from him, that he did not know how many times he had seen him, had done a little business with him, but very seldom had anything to do with him, and probably had not seen him for 2 years before the homicide. On the former appeal it was ruled that such an acquaintance, coupled with a single interview with appellant after he was imprisoned for this crime, was not sufficient to render the witness competent to testify that in his opinion appellant was insane. Odom v. State, supra. Since he testified on the first trial the witness, according to his present testimony, has visited and interviewed appellant while in prison six or seven times, seeing him about half an hour on each occasion. An acquaintance so restricted in its character, and so artificial in its probable results, cannot be regarded as satisfactory. And certainly the rejection of the witness' opinion was no abuse of the discretion of the trial court.

There is another aspect, also, in which the opinion of the witness might have been properly rejected. The question put to him was: "In your opinion, is Odom sane or insane?" It was thus directed to the mental condition of the defendant at a time about 15 months after the commission of the homicide.

Although the issue was specifically as to the mental condition of the defendant at the time of the homicide, the inquiry was not limited to that time alone.

And it is a sound general rule that insanity at any particular time if shown to be habitual and permanent in its nature, is prima facie presumed as a matter of law to exist at any future time; and alone from its existence at a later time a presumption of fact may arise of its existence at a given prior time. Murphree v. Senn, 107 Ala. 424, 18 So. 264; McAllister v. State, 17 Ala. 434, 52 Am. Dec. 180. But in the latter case it is clear that the probative value of subsequent insanity to show...