Sims v. State

• Decision Date: 13 June 1911
• Parties: SIMS v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

55 So. 1027

1 Ala.App. 240

SIMS v. STATE.

Court of Appeals of Alabama

June 13, 1911

Appeal from Shelby County Court; E. S. Lyman, Judge.

Annie Sims was convicted of adultery, and she appeals. Affirmed.

Wallace & Henderson, for appellant.

R. C Brickell, Atty. Gen., and T. H. Seay, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

WALKER P.J.

Proof having been offered tending to show acts of illicit intercourse between the defendant and Rufe Carson, committed in the house in which the defendant, and also Rufe Carson and his wife and his mother, Tempie Carson, lived, it was admissible to prove that the defendant and Rufe Carson co-operated in driving the latter's wife from the house. This evidence tended to illustrate the relation existing between the defendant and Rufe Carson, and there was no error in its admission. Hill v. State, 137 Ala. 66, 34 So 406. And in that connection it was not improper to admit proof of abusive language used by the defendant towards the wife of Rufe Carson at that place.

Winnie Carson, the wife of Rufe Carson, on her direct examination as a witness for the state, testified that she came from Mountain Creek to Columbiana about a month before the defendant came to that place. On cross-examination defendant's counsel asked the witness if her husband and children were with her and came with her from Mountain Creek. The court sustained an objection made by the solicitor to this question. There was no error in that ruling. The record does not show that the fact inquired about had any bearing upon any issue in the case.

The bill of exceptions purports to set out only in part the testimony of Tempie Carson, a witness examined in behalf of the defendant. For anything shown by the bill of exceptions the defendant's counsel may have elicited on his examination of this witness a part of a conversation between her and Hattie Swift, which occurred about the time she was expecting the defendant to come to her house. If so, it was permissible for the solicitor, on a cross-examination of that witness, to ask her if she had made a certain statement in that conversation, and, upon her denying that such statement was made, to offer proof in rebuttal that such statement formed a part of the conversation to which she had testified. Proof in rebuttal was permissible in reference to a matter which may have been brought into the case by the defendant herself. It is not for this court to presume that...