Slaughter v. State
| Decision Date | 12 January 1926 |
| Docket Number | 6 Div. 770 |
| Citation | 21 Ala.App. 211,106 So. 891 |
| Parties | SLAUGHTER v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Walker County; R.L. Blanton, Judge.
Birdel Slaughter was convicted of murder in the second degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Gray & Powell, of Jasper, for appellant.
Harwell G. Davis, Atty. Gen., and Thos. E. Knight, Jr., Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
Appellant has assigned errors, although the statute or rules of court do not so require, this being a criminal case. The writer approves the practice, and regards it as being advisable having as it does, the effect of presenting to the appellate court the concrete points of decision relied upon by appellant for reversal. It is permissible to assign errors even in a criminal case, and doing so in no manner prevents or precludes the court from considering all questions apparent on the record or reserved by bill of exceptions as the statute requires. Code 1923, § 3258.
In this case the affirmative charge was requested (refused charges A, B, 5). These charges were requested, apparently, upon the theory of the insufficiency of the evidence to prove the corpus delicti. Or, in other words, that it was not sufficiently shown that Albert Carpenter, the deceased named in the indictment, died as a result of the gunshot wounds admittedly inflicted upon him by this appellant. We cannot accord to the insistences in this connection. This is a case of homicide, the defendant having been charged by indictment and convicted of the offense of murder in the second degree. The necessary constituents of the corpus delicti in a homicide case are: (1) The death of a human being; and (2) the criminal agency producing such death. In other words, the death of the person alleged to have been killed must be established by direct testimony, or by circumstantial evidence of cogent or irresistible force. Here the evidence is without dispute that on a certain night in September, 1922, and in Walker county, Ala., this appellant, defendant in the court below, inflicted several pistol shot wounds into the body of the deceased named in the indictment, and the evidence also shows that some of these wounds were in the bowels or vitals of the deceased. That Albert Carpenter died within 16 days after this shooting at the hospital to which he was taken the next morning after the shooting is not denied, and that he was subsequently buried is also without dispute. We regard the testimony as being amply sufficient to authorize the jury to conclude that the deceased died as a result of the pistol shot wounds inflicted upon him by this appellant, who used an automatic pistol at close range.
The evidence shows that immediately following the shooting Albert Carpenter "didn't do nothing but stagger, and says, 'Boys, he got me.' " This was of the res gestae and permissible. Without objection the witness, Sam Rasberry, testified among other things: "That fellow Albert Carpenter that got killed," etc., and the testimony of state witness, Joe Carpenter, brother of deceased, disclosed that he carried his brother Albert to the hospital on the morning after the shooting, saw the wounds upon his body, and stated:
"I saw the wounds in his belly; I saw the wound in his hand; I saw the wounds in the stomach twice; I saw the doctor dress the wounds; my brother died then at the hospital; I saw the doctor operate on him, and I saw the wounds on his body; blood was coming out of the holes; they were good size holes; the holes were as large as my little finger; I know that my brother is dead; I helped bury him at Burnwell in Walker county."
While we are of the opinion, as stated, that this evidence, together with other of a cumulative nature, was sufficient to authorize and justify the jury in the conclusion that the deceased met his death as a result of the pistol shot wounds inflicted upon him by this appellant, yet it cannot be questioned that it would have been better practice to have had subpoenaed the surgeon who performed the operation upon the deceased, and who attended him until he died, who could have testified at first hand the immediate cause of the death of deceased. By this means the case would not have been burdened with a question of this kind.
The remaining assignments of error (and the assignments of error cover fully every question contained in the transcript) relate to the...
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Saunders v. State
...view of the fact that the identification of Seals by [the victim] both in court and at the line-up was undisputed. Slaughter v. State, 21 Ala.App. 211, 106 So. 891 [(1926)]." 282 Ala. at 603-04, 213 So.2d at The circumstances in this case parallel those presented in Seals. Mrs. Clemons iden......
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Seals v. State
...in view of the fact that the identification of Seals by Mrs. Shaw both in court and at the line-up was undisputed.-- Slaughter v. State, 21 Ala.App. 211, 106 So. 891. We are not here concerned with the holdings of the Supreme Court of the United States in United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218......
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Dismukes v. State
...the deceased at the time of his death. The James holding as extended by Dismukes, flies squarely in the face of Slaughter v. State, 21 Ala.App. 211, 106 So. 891 (1926). In Slaughter, the deceased died within sixteen days after being shot in the abdomen with an automatic pistol. There was ey......
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Denson v. State
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