Riley v. State
| Decision Date | 11 January 1927 |
| Docket Number | 6 Div. 66 |
| Citation | 21 Ala.App. 655,111 So. 649 |
| Parties | RILEY v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Rehearing Granted March 8, 1927
Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County; J.C.B. Gwin, Judge.
J.D alias Dug, Riley was convicted of first degree manslaughter and he appeals. Reversed and remanded on rehearing.
Goodwyn & Ross, of Bessemer, for appellant.
Harwell G. Davis, Atty. Gen., and Chas. H. Brown, Asst. Atty. Gen for the State.
Appellant was convicted of the offense of manslaughter in the first degree, and given a sentence to serve 10 years in the penitentiary. The deceased, one R.V. Lee, was the Superintendent of the Woodward Plant of the Woodstock Slag Company, and appellant was a night foreman working under him. A controversy arose between them which culminated in the fatal difficulty, which occurred in the office of the company at Woodward.
We cannot see that a discussion of the evidence would be helpful. Lee was killed by a pistol shot by appellant. There were several eyewitnesses, some of whom testified for the state and some for the defendant. The circumstances under which the shot was fired, in varying versions, were fully brought out on the trial.
Numerous exceptions were reserved on the taking of testimony, but, after carefully reading the entire record, we are convinced that there is merit in none of them.
The matters shown by the diagram admitted in evidence were described by appellant's witness Williams as being "arranged something like that" (referring to the diagram). We think, in view of the fact that the versions of both the state and the defense as to the arrangement of the room, distances, location of chairs, and other objects were allowed to be fully laid before the jury, and in view of the fact that the diagram did not purport to be, and was not offered by the state as being, an accurate work of engineering, but was, at most, offered as a sort of memorandum of the situation, the court did not err in allowing it to go to the jury. The correctness of the diagram, as well as the accuracy of the testimony relative thereto, was a question for the jury, as was also the extent to which they were aided by said diagram. Jones v. State, 181 Ala. 63, 61 So. 434.
We can see no impropriety in allowing the witnesses to be cross-examined as to whether or not they had made certain statements in their testimony before the grand jury. If the statements, being prior, were contradictory of their testimony on the trial, it was proper to allow their impeachment in this manner. Harmon v. State, 166 Ala. 28, 52 So. 348. If they were not so contradictory, testimony of their having been made could not be prejudicial to appellant. The matter of the solicitor referring to a memorandum to enable him to propound the questions could not have been of prejudice to any right belonging to appellant.
Objections to questions asked on cross-examination by the state of defendant's witness Walker were properly overruled as the cross-examination was proceeding along the same general lines of witness' direct examination. The matter was well within the latitude allowed on cross-examination as mentioned in Hasty v. State, 20 Ala.App. 9, 100 So. 561.
And then, anyhow, the fact that a witness has known a party for a reasonable time, and been during such time in the same general vicinity with him, and has never heard anything...
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