Pilcher v. State
| Decision Date | 26 June 1917 |
| Docket Number | 4 Div. 452 |
| Citation | 16 Ala.App. 237,77 So. 75 |
| Parties | PILCHER v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Rehearing Denied Nov. 13, 1917
Appeal from Circuit Court, Houston County; H.A. Pearce, Judge.
Grady Pilcher was convicted of crime, and appeals. Reversed and remanded.
Certiorari denied 77 So. 1001.
Sollie & Sollie, of Ozark, for appellant.
W.L Martin, Atty. Gen., and P.W. Turner, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The evidence in this case, which is, practically without conflict, discloses the following facts: That the defendant a police officer of the city of Dothan, while on duty as such officer and in the discharge of said duty, arrested the deceased for the commission of an offense against the ordinances of said city, and which was committed in the presence of the officer; that the deceased was a man of violent, turbulent, and bloodthirsty character, and while being carried in the direction of the city prison, and while under arrest, resisted the arrest and cursed and abused the police officer in vile terms, and with an open knife in his hand advanced upon the officer, with his hand raised in a cutting position, and notwithstanding the officer warned him several times not to come on him with the knife, the officer stepping back all this time, the deceased continued to advance and was within two steps of the officer when the shot was fired which resulted in the death of the deceased. The evidence further shows, and without conflict, that deceased a short time before the difficulty, had threatened on several occasions to take the life of the defendant. The facts shown by the state were very meager, and consisted of the testimony of the mother of the deceased, who testified that her son died on the 14th day of May, 1914, and the testimony of one J.A. Wood, who swore that the deceased made a dying declaration to him, and also that subsequent to the killing the defendant came to his place of business and made a statement or confession to him about the difficulty, and showed him the knife that he said the deceased had attempted to cut him with.
There were few exceptions reserved during the trial of the case and these relate (1) to the ruling of the court on the testimony of the witness J.A. Wood as to the alleged confession made by the defendant to said witness. It is insisted that no proper predicate was laid showing that the statement or confession made by the defendant was voluntary. There is no merit in this contention, it having been shown by the predicate laid that the statement or confession so made was wholly voluntary, as no inducement of any kind or character had been made to the defendant in order to get him to make a statement, neither had he been threatened or coerced in any manner in this connection, nor was he told that it would be better for him to make a statement, neither was he offered any reward to do so, etc. This predicate met every requirement of the rule of law authorizing the introduction into evidence of the confessions of the defendant.
2. The next insistence of error was to the ruling of the court on the admission of the dying declarations of the deceased. There were several grounds of objection insisted upon in this connection, but the two material grounds appear to be (1) because it was not shown that at the time the statement was made by deceased, he (the deceased) had given up hope of recovery, nor that he was under a sense of approaching death, and (2) that the statement so made was illegal, incompetent, irrelevant, and inadmissible in that it was the opinion or conclusion of deceased. The exceptions were reserved in this connection in every conceivable manner. The dying declarations which were admitted over the objection of the defendant, and which the court declined to exclude upon motion of the defendant are as follows: "Well he said that that fellow murdered him, that the fellow was Grady Pilcher" (the defendant).
The ordinary rules that are invoked for the determination of the admissibility of evidence generally or of the competency of the witness testifying, are applicable to the admissibility of dying declarations and to the competency of the declarant at the time he made the...
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