Richardson v. State

• Decision Date: 28 April 1906
• Citation: 145 Ala. 46,41 So. 82
• Parties: RICHARDSON v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

41 So. 82

145 Ala. 46

RICHARDSON v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 28, 1906

Appeal fro Circuit Court, Marengo County; John T. Lackland, Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Robert Richardson was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

This defendant, together with Albert Richardson and John Hoskins was indicted for the murder of Frank L. Fosque. The defendant demanded a severance, and was tried alone, and convicted, and sentenced to be hanged. The witness Townsend testified that he was sent from Selma with a lot of dogs, which he obtained from the Union Star kennel; that he had tried the dogs before, and knew they were trained dogs; that he remembered the time when Dr. Fosque was said to have been killed; that he was shown the place where it was said the murder was committed. All the questions bringing out the above testimony, together with the answers thereto, were objected to by the defendant, and motion was made to exclude each separately, which objections and motions were overruled by the court. He further testified, over the objection of the defendant: "I took the dog Rock. He picked up the trail and the dog Rye joined therein. They struck the trail 20 or 30 feet from where I was told the body had lain. We first picked up the trail down the hill in a natural depression trailed down the branch and into the woods." The witness further testified that he had handled dogs all of his life and knew that these dogs would trail the tracks of men; that "these dogs have trailed a track nine hours old. I know these dogs are man trailers, and I saw two human tracks in the creek that night, a small one and a large one, where the dogs were trailing. The tracks went in the direction of the defendant's house, and the dogs trailed in the same direction."

Wilson & Wilson, for appellant.

Massey Wilson, Atty. Gen., for the State.

WEAKLEY C.J.

The several questions propounded to the witness Townsend as to his knowledge of the time and place where and when the deceased was said to have been killed were within the rule declared in Stoball v. State, 116 Ala. 454, 459, 23 So. 162, and were properly allowed. They were merely introductory to other questions necessary to elicit facts that were legal evidence. Frazier v. State, 116 Ala. 442, 23 So. 134; Green v. State, 96 Ala. 29, 11 So. 478.

There was testimony addressed to the court that the confession of the defendant was voluntarily made, and that the officer to whom it was made offered no reward or inducement and made no threat to procure the defendant to make the inculpatory statement. Under these circumstances we cannot declare that the trial court erred in holding the confession to be competent and in allowing it to go to the jury, although another person was present at the time of the confession and there was an absence of evidence as to any act done by such person to wrongfully induce a statement by the defendant or that such person did nothing improper to procure the confession to be made. No objection was made to the statement of the witness that the confession was voluntary, and no cross-examination was indulged to disprove the statement. The court, therefore, was authorized to conclude that a sufficient predicate had been laid to warrant the admission of the confession for the consideration of the jury.

It was competent to prove that on the day of the killing the defendant was seen with a shotgun by witnesses who were cutting cordwood about a mile or more from the scene of the crime.

The previous decisions of this court have settled that under proper conditions it is permissible, for the purpose of connecting a defendant with a crime, to admit evidence, along with the other circumstances, that dogs trained to track human beings were put on the trail at the scene of the crime where circumstances or evidence tend to show the defendant had been, and that after taking the trail they went thence to a point where defendant is shown to have been after the commission of the act. Hodge v. State, 98 Ala. 10, 13 So. 385, 39 Am. St. Rep. 17; Simpson v. State, 111 Ala. 6; Little v. State (Ala.) 39 So. 674. The case of Pedigo v. Commonwealth, 103 Ky. 41, 44 S.W. 143, 82 Am. St. Rep. 566, 42 L. R. A. 432, is to the same effect. Where such evidence is proposed to be introduced, it would, of course, be proper to allow a witness, familiar with the dogs and accustomed to handling them, to testify that they are skilled in the trailing or tracking of men, and within what time, after the making of tracks, the dogs would take up and follow the trail. The court committed no error in allowing...