Read v. State

• Decision Date: 10 February 1916
• Docket Number: 4 Div. 609
• Citation: 195 Ala. 671,71 So. 96
• Parties: READ v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

71 So. 96

195 Ala. 671

READ v. STATE.

4 Div. 609

Supreme Court of Alabama

February 10, 1916

Appeal from Circuit Court, Bullock County; M. Sollie, Judge.

Butler Read was convicted of homicide, and he appeals. Affirmed.

T.S Frazer, of Union Springs, for appellant.

W.L Martin, Atty. Gen., and J.P. Mudd, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

SOMERVILLE J.

One of the veniremen, Walker L. Brooks, was drawn and summoned under the name of Walter L. Brooks, and was so noted in the copy served on defendant. Defendant seasonably moved for a continuance of the cause on this ground, which motion was overruled. He moved the court to quash the venire on the grounds that the jury list was not properly selected by the commissioners, and that they did not purge the jury box of names illegally placed therein. Defendant's rights with respect to this venire, no fraud or corruption appearing were qualified by section 32 of the jury law (Special Sess.Acts 1909, pp. 305, 320), as follows:

"If the sheriff fails to summon, or any juror summoned fail or refuse to attend the trial, or there is a mistake in the name of any juror drawn or summoned, none, or all, of these grounds shall be sufficient to quash the venire or to continue the case."

In the absence of proof to the contrary, it must be presumed that the variance complained of was merely a mistake, and defendant's motions were therefore properly overruled.

There is a well-defined distinction between inculpatory admissions by a defendant of collateral facts, and confessions, or admissions in the nature of confessions, of actual guilt.

In the former class of cases no predicate of voluntariness need be laid in order to render the admissions admissible in evidence. McGehee v. State, 171 Ala. 19, 21, 55 So 159. Defendant's several conversations with state's witnesses, which were introduced against him, were in no sense confessions of guilt; and, being prima facie voluntary, they were admissible without the predicate. It is therefore not necessary to consider the sufficiency vel non of the predicates offered.

The chief question presented by the record is whether the testimony of the state's witness, Jim Thomas, who was confessedly an accomplice, and who testified directly to defendant's commission of the murder, was corroborated by any other evidence "tending to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense," as required for his conviction by section 7897 of the Code. On the theory that there was no such corroboration, defendant...