Pruitt v. State, 8 Div. 692

• Decision Date: 23 April 1936
• Docket Number: 8 Div. 692
• Citation: 232 Ala. 421,168 So. 149
• Parties: PRUITT v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

168 So. 149

232 Ala. 421

PRUITT v. STATE.

8 Div. 692

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 23, 1936

Rehearing Denied May 28, 1936

Appeal from Circuit Court, Franklin County; C.P. Almon, Judge.

George Pruitt, alias Buddie Pruitt, alias George Jaggers, was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Wm Stell and H.H. Hamilton, both of Russellville, for appellant.

A.A Carmichael, Atty. Gen., and Wm. H. Loeb, Asst. Atty. Gen for the State.

THOMAS Justice.

The defendant was indicted, tried, and convicted of murder in the first degree and his punishment fixed at death by electrocution.

The defendant was represented by counsel who file a brief for him in this court. No question is presented as to the arraignment, venire, and the three assignments of error urged by counsel have been duly considered.

The witness Pierce testifying as to the bullet holes in the car detailed the facts; as that the hole on the inside of the car was smaller than the hole on the outside and was more jagged on the outside. In this there was no error. Roan v. State, 225 Ala. 428, 143 So. 454; Clemons v. State, 167 Ala. 20, 52 So. 467. There was no error in allowing that witness to further testify that he placed a pencil in the bullet hole to see the direction it entered the car and that the range of the bullet seemed going on the level of the corner, according to the way the hole was through the car.

There was no error in allowing the undertaker and the physician who examined the body to testify as to the manner and result of such examination, the nature and condition of the wounds, and the range of the bullet in the body. In the foregoing rulings, the action of the trial court was within the rule that obtains and which was recently applied in Alabama Power Company v. Jackson, Adm'x (Ala.Sup.) 166 So. 692, and Rowe v. Alabama Power Company (Ala.Sup.) 167 So. 324. It is established that in homicide cases a description of the locus in quo is relevant as tending to prove the circumstances of the homicide. Reynolds v. State, 24 Ala.App. 249, 134 So. 815, certiorari denied 223 Ala. 130, 134 So. 817.

Dr. Reid, who qualified as a physician experienced in such matters, was permitted to state, as to the wounds--knife and gunshot--he found on the body of the deceased, that, in his judgment, the deeper one that "went into the hollow of the abdominal cavity" was a knife wound "calculated to produce death." The witness, testifying as to his qualifications to give an opinion as an expert, said:

"I am an expert on wounds produced by firearms and knives. It is my judgment as an expert the person or persons who fired the fatal wound that entered the heart was within six inches at the time the fatal shot was fired. In my opinion the knife wounds were produced by someone who reached around to his right and came over like this, reaching under like this, and it is my judgment that it would be possible for the wound to have been produced by a person sitting by his side with handcuffs on his arms. It ranged up."

The action of the trial court in admitting the evidence to which exception was reserved was without error.

The witness Osborne was allowed to testify that a man who looked like defendant Pruitt came into his store about the middle of the afternoon and asked if he had any guns, and witness asked him "what kind of guns and he said shotguns," and being answered in the negative defendant "turned and walked out." In this there was no error. The corpus delicti being shown, it was in close proximity to the time and place of the homicide and a relevant fact for the jury. Gross v. State (Ala.Sup.) 165 So. 840.

There was no error in allowing the witness Cora Mae Brooks to testify that about 4 o'clock the deceased arrested the defendant, handcuffed him, and took him to the car; that "I didn't hear anything that Pruitt said to Sanderson as he was taking him to the car. Before Sanderson carried Pruitt off I heard Pruitt tell Sanderson what he would do to him. Mr. Sanderson told him he was going to take him to Russellville and Pruitt, who called himself Jaggers, said, and before you take me to Russellville I will take you and your car both to hell. They went off and turned around down there. I went in the house. Sanderson and Pruitt, when they left mother's home, went toward Red Bay. They drove toward Red Bay a short distance and came back. The woman, Zula, and the little girl got in the car with them. Pruitt sit in the front seat with Sanderson and the woman in the back seat. I did not see Pruitt any more that day. The woman that I am talking about, she said her name was Zula Jaggers and was his wife. She said that in the presence of Pruitt."

In the further examination of that witness, the record recites:

"The little deaf girl was there at our house. Zula and the little girl came back in about thirty-five or forty minutes. Zula had blood on her when she came back, I think that she had about as much blood on her when she left in the car with the men; wasn't much worse when she came back than it was before.

"Thereupon, the Solicitor asked the witness the following question:

" 'When she came back which you have stated was within about 35 or 40 minutes

after she had left in the car with Sanderson and Pruitt, did she have any blood on her?' Defendant objected to the question and the court overruled the objection and the defendant then and there duly excepted in the presence of the jury. The witness answered: 'She didn't have any more blood on her when she was at our house the last time than she did the first time she was there.' Thereupon, the defendant moved the court to exclude the answer and assigns all grounds assigned to the question. The court overruled the motion and the defendant then and there in open court excepted. Thereupon, the witness continued her testimony as follows:

" 'When she came back the second time she had blood on her hands and she washed them off.

"Thereupon, defendant moved the court to exclude what the witness has said about what was on her hands prior to the time she left with Sanderson as being illegal and foreign to any issue in this case and no part of the res gestae and the court sustained the motion."

The foregoing testimony showing the condition of Zula when she returned was for the jury, as tending to shed light upon the homicide committed about that time and place, and to show her participation in or a party to the commission of that crime.

The witness, Mrs. Diralye Brooks, testified as follows:

"** when Mr. Sanderson said he was going to take him back with him, Mr. Pruitt spoke up and said: 'No, you may not, I may take you and your car both into hell before you get through with me.' I was standing in the big road in front of my door when he made that statement. Pruitt had the handcuffs on at that time. Mr. Sanderson had his pistol in his pocket and took it out; he put it in his shirt right here (indicating) in his bosom. I don't remember whether he had a cartridge belt on or not. ** I was there during the time Walter Sanderson was arresting the defendant standing by the Cochran woman, and I saw her pick up a knife. The knife was thrown from somewhere or another the first I knowed about it it went through between my feet and hit my dress hem and that made me look and so she just picked it up and laid it on her arm like this and put her pocket-book over it and she said she had bought it to kill a man. That was Zula that said that. It was open and she went off with it that way; you see whenever he threw it it just went between my feet and hit my dress hem. The two women folks was standing there and the two men were in Sanderson's car. Zula got out and got a bible the little girl wanted. She had the knife under her coat sleeve like that, one (of) them old brown rain-coats and she kinda put it down under the cuffs like this and just laid her pocket-book over it like that (Indicating right hand) and she just laid the pocket-book over the knife like that. That is the knife. She got in the car with the knife open and left that way. The little deaf and dumb girl got in the car too. The woman sat behind Mr. Sanderson, Zula Johnson or Jaggers or whatever you want to call her she set behind Mr. Sanderson and the little deaf girl was sitting behind her father, George Pruitt. Mr. Sanderson was driving and George Pruitt was in the seat with him with the handcuffs on. They went towards Red Bay from my house, and that is the last time I ever seen Mr. Sanderson, and then in just a little while though the woman come back to my house from the direction Mr. Sanderson's body was found. They came back in about thirty-five or forty minutes, maybe a little longer. Mr. Sanderson was found somewhere near two miles from my house."

The witness Robert Upton, Jr., who was in the searching party for the knife and handcuffs, found the knife with something on it that looked like blood, about one hundred yards beyond the woods where the Sanderson car was wrecked; turned the knife over to Mr. Sparks, a deputy sheriff, who identified the weapon in its unchanged condition.

The state introduced in evidence, Mr. C.E. Jones, who testified that he was in charge of the School for the Deaf and Dumb at Talladega; has been connected with that institution for twelve years and is familiar with the signs made by the deaf-mutes with their hands; did not teach Tula Pruitt, but had talked with her; that she had attended that school for several years and was able to discern what witness was talking about to her with reference to the case, and while her mind is bright, her ability to talk is not skillful in the sign language. The defendant objected to the question "Has she talked to you and told you how the killing happened?"...