Satterfield v. State
| Decision Date | 15 January 1925 |
| Docket Number | 6 Div. 232 |
| Parties | SATTERFIELD v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County; J.C.B. Gwin, Judge.
Jack Satterfield was convicted of murder in the second degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Benton & Bentley, of Bessemer, for appellant.
Harwell G. Davis, Atty. Gen., and Lamar Field, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Appellant was convicted of murder in the second degree, and his punishment fixed at imprisonment for 25 years.
The first question considered in brief of appellant's counsel relates to the action of the court in overruling the motion to quash the venire, and grant a continuance upon the ground that the service of the venire was insufficient. The trial was had on May 27, 1924, and service of the venire was on the day previous. The mere fact that the venire could and doubtless should have been served a few days earlier, does not appear to have worked any prejudice to defendant, and presents no sufficient ground for reversal, as was held in Scott v. State (Ala.Sup.) 100 So. 211.
Refused charge No. 1 is argumentative. Moreover, the substance of this charge is embraced in oral charge of the court, and charge No. 8 given for the defendant. Charge 29, refused to the defendant, is substantially covered in given charges 1 and 2, and, also, the oral charge.
Refused charge 36 exacts too high a degree of proof, and its refusal was not error. 1 Mayfield Dig. 176. The court in the oral charge fully and fairly instructed the jury upon the question of credibility of a witness on account of bias, prejudice or ill will. Refused charge 31 was sufficiently covered by the oral charge.
The deceased, a negro woman, was shot through the stomach with a pistol in the hands of the defendant, and died as a result thereof. The defense insisted the shooting was accidental while the state offered proof tending to show the contrary. At the time the shot was fired, deceased was sitting in a chair in the house with her baby in her lap. There was no error in permitting the state's witness to state that the baby's leg and clothes were powder burned; all of this was admissible as a part of the res gestae. That the baby of deceased was in her lap at the time was proven without conflict, and admitted by defendant. Very clearly, no prejudicial error was committed in permitting the witness Lucinda Cary, the older child of deceased, to answer that she had a "baby sister."
John Cary, husband of deceased, testified to a dying declaration sufficient predicate having been made by his evidence for the admission of the statement, that she (deceased) told him "that she was going to die." Defendant moved to exclude the entire answer of this witness embracing the dying declaration. In argument particular stress is laid upon the last sentence in the answer, "and she said the reason he shot, because she wouldn't have him," as objectionable, as not giving the language of deceased, but only a conclusion or opinion. Whether subject to this criticism need not be considered, as no specific objection was made thereto, but only to the whole answer, a large portion of which was very clearly not subject to the criticism in this respect. Clearly, no reversible error here appears.
The state offered proof of a voluntary statement made by defendant, in which he insisted it "came up about some whisky, *** had some little argument about some whisky," to use the language of the witness. There was therefore no error in permitting John Cary, the husband, to testify that he had no whisky there at the house where he and deceased lived, and where the shooting occurred.
Nor is reversible error shown in the exception to a portion of the argument of the solicitor to the jury. We construe these statements as appeals for the death penalty, and not beyond the limitations fixed by the decisions. McNeill v State, 102 Ala. 121, ...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Johnson v. State
...of the case and what the result of the jury verdict should be. The following cases also clearly sustain this view: Satterfield v. State, 212 Ala. 349, 102 So. 691; Frost v. State, 225 Ala. 232, 142 So. 427; Ex parte State ex rel. Davis, 210 Ala. 96, 97 So. 573; Davidson v. State, 211 Ala. 4......
-
Oliver v. State
...rendered by reason of the presence of such witness. Roan v. State, supra; Aylward v. State, 216 Ala. 218, 113 So. 22; Satterfield v. State, 212 Ala. 349, 102 So. 691; Lowery v. State, 23 Ala.App. 191, 122 So. Taylor v. State, 18 Ala.App. 466, 93 So. 78. Each case is to be judged by its part......
-
Redus v. State
...Aylward v. State, 216 Ala. 218, 113 So. 22, dealt with the sheriff conversing with one of the empaneled jurors. In Satterfield v. State, 212 Ala. 349, 102 So. 691, was held that a question by a juror to a bailiff who had entered the jury room was improper. Lowery v. State, 23 Ala.App. 191, ......
-
Peterson v. State
... ... that objection, more than an appeal for the death penalty? If ... so, was its influence on the jury eradicable by action of the ... court in sustaining the objection? This subject was ... considered in McNeill v. State, 102 Ala. 121, 127, ... 15 So. 352, 48 Am.St.Rep. 17; Satterfield v. State, ... 212 Ala. 349, 102 So. 691; Cross v. State, 68 Ala ... 476; Bachelor v. State, 216 Ala. 356, 113 So. 67; ... and People v. Rogan, 1 Cal.(2d) 615, 36 P.2d 631, 95 ... A.L.R. 566. In these cases the trial court sustained ... objection of the defendant to such argument, and ... ...