South v. State
| Decision Date | 03 May 1889 |
| Citation | 86 Ala. 617,6 So. 52 |
| Parties | SOUTH v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from circuit court, Fayette county; S. H. SPROTT, Judge.
McGuire & Collier, for appellant.
W L. Martin, Atty. Gen., for the State.
The appellant was indicted in March, 1885, for the offense of manslaughter. He was tried and convicted at the spring term 1889, of the circuit court of Fayette, and sentenced to seven years in the penitentiary. Under the law in force at the time the crime was committed defendants on trial for felonies not capital were entitled to fifteen peremptory challenges. Code 1876, § 4879. By the law in force at the time of this trial the number had been reduced to eight. Acts 1886-87, p. 151 The court below allowed the appellant the number prescribed in the act last referred to, and declined to allow him any peremptory challenges in excess of that number. It was contended in the circuit court, and the contention is renewed here, that the act of 1887 was amended or repealed pro tanto by the Code of 1886, and that challenges were to be allowed according to section 4330 of that Code. We do not think this position is correct.
The act adopting the Code of 1886 expressly provides against such a result. Section 2 of that act is in the following language: "No act passed at the present session [that of 1886-87] of the general assembly shall be repealed or affected in any manner by the adoption of this Code." Acts 1886-87, p. 47. It is true that the commissioners were required to incorporate all acts of that session "amending sections of the Code of 1876" into the Code of 1886, but their failure to so incorporate that part of the jury law of 1887 which prescribes the number of peremptory challenges to which defendants in criminal cases are entitled can have no effect on that provision, for several obvious reasons. The first and most important of these is that the requirement referred to was merely directory It is not to be assumed that the legislature intended to make this incorporation essential to the validity of the class of statutes mentioned, and, while expressly declaring that no act passed at that session should be at all affected by the Code, to put it in the power of the commissioners to absolutely repeal any act amending a section of the former Code by simply omitting it from the new Code. Another reason for denying the result insisted on is that the jury statute of 1887 does not come within the terms of the direction that certain acts of that session should be transcribed into the Code. It neither purports to amend, nor in fact amends any section of the Code of 1876 having reference to peremptory challenges, but is an original, independent enactment, having the effect of amending the act of February 17, 1885.
It is further insisted, if the position considered above be not well taken, that the defendant was entitled to 15 peremptory challenges, because this was the number allowed when the offense was committed; and the act of 1887, reducing the number, is, as applied to this case, ex post facto and void. Without enlarging argumentatively on this point, it will suffice to say that the great weight of authority is against this position. Manifestly, laws of this class affect the remedy,-the procedure by which actions are maintained and defended and determined. They in no degree affect the right itself. As to crimes, their effect is in no sense to make an action criminal which was innocent when done, or to add to the criminality of an offense after its commission, or to increase the punishment, or to authorize a conviction on less or different testimony than that required when the crime was committed. Relating, as they do, to procedure, laws of this character may be modified at any time by the legislature, and as modified will apply in all subsequent proceedings, with respect to offenses committed before as well as...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Hubbard v. State
...cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1137, 103 S.Ct. 3122, 17 L.Ed.2d 1374 (1983); Haynes v. State, 424 So.2d 669 (Ala.Cr.App.1982); South v. State, 86 Ala. 617, 6 So. 52 (1889). We find no merit in this Appellant contends that his conviction under § 13-11-2(a)(13) violates his rights under the Eighth an......
-
Hallock v. United States
...... Oklahoma. The indictment was not found nor the trial had. until after that territory and the Indian Territory were. admitted as the state of Oklahoma. The organic act of the. territory of Oklahoma in force when the offenses were. committed required their prosecution and trial in ... Ryan, 13 Minn. 370 (Gil. 343)); reducing the number of. peremptory challenges allowed defendants in trials of. felonies, not capital ( South v. State, 86 Ala. 617,. 6 So. 52); reducing the number of grand jurors ( State v. Ah Jim, 9 Mont. 167, 23 P. 76); preventing a defendant. from ......
-
Lynn v. State, 4 Div. 183
...denied, Ex parte Haynes (Ala.1983). Relying on Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 (1977), and South v. State, 86 Ala. 617, 6 So. 52 (1889), the court held that "Section 12-16-100 as amended in 1982 by Acts 1982, No. 82-221, so as to give the State and the accuse......
-
State v. Harp
...87 Ala. 30; Knight v. State, 103 Ala. 48; Burton v. State, 115 Ala. 1; Pate v. State, 158 Ala. 1; Francis v. State, 188 Ala. 39; South v. State, 86 Ala. 617; Pope State, 183 Ala. 61; Jacobi v. State, 133 Ala. 1; Matthews v. State, 96 Ala. 62; Vaughan v. State, 58 Ark. 353; Poe v. State, 95 ......