Parker v. State

• Decision Date: 14 May 1929
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 550.
• Citation: 123 So. 107,23 Ala.App. 217
• Parties: PARKER v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

123 So. 107

23 Ala.App. 217

PARKER v. STATE.

6 Div. 550.

Court of Appeals of Alabama

May 14, 1929

Rehearing Denied June 18, 1929.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County; J. Russell McElroy Judge.

Felix Parker was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Fort Beddow & Ray, of Birmingham, for appellant.

Charlie C. McCall, Atty. Gen., for the State.

BRICKEN P.J.

Appellant was indicted for the offense of murder in the first degree the indictment charging that he unlawfully and with malice aforethought killed Thurston Attaway by striking him with a bed slat. In count 2, the means of the alleged killing was stated "by striking him with a blunt instrument, a more particular description of which is to the grand jury unknown," etc.

The evidence tended to establish the corpus delicti without dispute; it conclusively appearing therefrom that the named deceased came to his death as a result of a blow (or blows) inflicted upon him during the difficulty upon which this prosecution was predicated.

We have carefully read, and have given attentive consideration to, the voluminous record, and to many insistences of error. We shall not undertake to discuss ad seriatum the innumerable exceptions reserved during the trial, as no good purpose could be thus subserved.

The appellant was convicted of the offense of manslaughter in the first degree, and his punishment fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for ten years.

One Mathews was also indicted for the same offense, and it appears to be conceded that it was he (Mathews) who struck the fatal blow.

The state proceeded upon the theory of a conspiracy, which involved this appellant, and offered evidence tending to show that he participated actively in the difficulty which resulted in the death of Attaway. This appellant strenuously denied that he took any part in the difficulty, and insisted throughout that he acted only as peacemaker, and, further, that at no time did he inflict any blow or injury upon the deceased, and did not aid or abet, or encourage, any one else to do so, and that he had no guilty connection whatever with the death of Attaway and the crime charged.

So far as this court is able to ascertain from the record, the only evidence tending to connect the defendant (appellant) directly with the commission of the offense was that given by state witnesses Mathews and Crumpton, and it is earnestly insisted by appellant here, and was likewise insisted in the court below, that these two witnesses were, in contemplation of law, accomplices, and that the conviction of appellant was wrongful, as it was rested upon their uncorroborated testimony only. Witness Mathews was admittedly an accomplice; the court so charged as a matter of law, and as to this there is no dispute. One of the most material inquiries in the case is presented by the question, Was Osie Crumpton, the other eyewitness, an accomplice also? There was some evidence tending to show that Crumpton was a participant in the difficulty complained of, and was also an accomplice. The divergent insistences in this connection are elaborately discussed in briefs of counsel, and the conclusion to be reached on this question rests largely upon the adjudication of this case.

In contemplation of law, an accomplice is one who is in some way concerned in the commission of the crime; and whether a witness is an...