Smith v. State
| Decision Date | 22 March 1927 |
| Docket Number | 7 Div. 305 |
| Citation | 22 Ala.App. 36,111 So. 763 |
| Parties | SMITH v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Shelby County: E.S. Lyman, Judge.
Albert Smith was convicted of murder in the second degree, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.
L.H. Ellis, of Columbiana, for appellant.
Harwell G. Davis, Atty. Gen., for the State.
The defendant was placed on trial under an indictment charging murder in the first degree. His plea was self-defense, and of course, the general plea of not guilty. The issue was clear and well defined. It was admitted that defendant shot the deceased with a double-barrel shotgun, from the effects of which he died.
Evidence as to when and where the shooting took place, and all of the facts within the res gestae, were admissible, both to establish the crime on the part of the state and any facts justifying defendant in taking the life of the deceased when and how he did. As to this part of the case it was competent for the state to prove by Dr. Givhan, who qualified as a surgical expert, and who examined the wounds of the dead man the location of the wounds, the range of the bullets, and their probable effect. But it was error to allow the doctor to testify in what position deceased was at the time the loads of shot hit him. The relative position of the parties at the time of the homicide are conclusions to be drawn by the jury from the evidence, and is not within the realm of testimony to be given by medical experts. Rigell v State, 8 Ala.App. 46, 62 So. 977; Gotcher v. State, 19 Ala. App. 269, 97 So. 111.
When the witness Eunice Lucas was testifying in behalf of the state, she testified that her feelings towards Bradford, the deceased, were bad. It thereupon became relevant for the defendant to prove that the relationship between Eunice Lucas was not only friendly, but intimate, as tending to show interest and bias, in the prosecution of the person charged with the murder of her friend and intimate. 12 Mitch.Dig. p. 1280, par. 281.
After Annie Smith, the wife of defendant, had testified in behalf of defendant, the solicitor was permitted to introduce in evidence a bill for divorce, filed by Annie Smith against the defendant, Albert Smith, in the circuit court of Shelby county, in which there were many charges of infidelity and cruelty alleged against defendant. The bill was not signed by the witness, but by her attorney. Under some circumstances and in certain cases pleadings filed in a court are admissible in evidence, but no such case is presented here. There is no allegation in the bill for divorce even remotely relevant to the issues involved in the trial of this defendant. Its introduction in evidence tended to prove no fact relating to the homicide, but did inject into the trial many unsupported charges of ill treatment of defendant's wife, and gave to the solicitor the basis for an appeal to the jury, which he later made use of in his closing...
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State v. Elijah
...show the illicit and other relations of the witness with the victim of the crime for which defendant is being prosecuted. Smith v. State, 22 Ala. App. 36, 111 So. 763; People v. Peccole, 92 Cal.App. 470, 268 P. 473; People v. Maggio, 324 Ill. 516, 155 N.E. 373; Rasnake v. Commonwealth, 135 ......
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Ware v. State
...counsel asked whether Ms. Coleman and the deceased were intimate, this inquiry would also have been relevant. See Smith v. State, 22 Ala.App. 36, 37, 111 So. 763, 764 (1927) (wherein the court held it was "relevant for the defendant to prove that the relationship between [the witness and th......
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Crawford v. State
...as expert); Blackburn v. State, 22 Ala.App. 561, 117 So. 614 (undertaker qualified as expert as to pistol wounds); Smith v. State, 22 Ala.App. 36, 37, 111 So. 763 (medical doctor qualified as surgical expert); Gotcher v. State, 19 Ala.App. 269, 270, 97 So. 111 (medical expert); Clark v. Sta......