Suggs v. State
| Decision Date | 13 March 1951 |
| Docket Number | 1 Div. 614 |
| Parties | SUGGS v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Harry Seale, of Mobile, for appellant.
A. A. Carmichael, Atty. Gen., and Jas. L. Screws, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The following charges were refused to defendant.
'16. The Court charges the jury that if defendant shot deceased under a bona fide belief that he was in impending danger of limb, and he had, under all the circumstances, reasonable cause to believe that he was in imminent danger at the time shooting was done, it would be immaterial whether there was such danger or not.
This appellant stands convicted of manslaughter in the first degree under an indictment charging murder in the first degree.
The appellant was the step father-in-law of the deceased, William Anderson Edwards. They and their respective families occupied the same house, the appellant, his wife, and his wife's grandchild occupying the downstairs rooms, while the the deceased and his wife, who was the daughter of appellant's wife, and their two children occupied the upper floor. To all purposes the apartments were separate, except that both used the single front entrance.
The entire evidence tends to establish the following facts, more or less without dispute. On the night of the homicide the deceased came along a street near his home. His wife observed him from an upstairs room and could tell he had been drinking. He knocked at the front door downstairs and Mr. Suggs, the appellant, admitted him to the house. The deceased went on upstairs, but his wife refused to admit him to the apartment. The deceased then called to the appellant who called to deceased's wife to admit the deceased, and she then did so. Deceased and his wife quarrelled, deceased cursing her. She came downstairs and went into a room with her mother. The deceased came downstairs and began to curse his wife's family, and his wife in particular. He asked her if she wanted to live with him any longer, and went back upstairs and packed his tools and clothing. He came back downstairs, paused long enough to curse his wife some more, and then kicking the front screen open he departed, carrying his tool chest and locker trunk with him.
He went around the corner to the home of Mr. H. B. Lee. Mr. Lee and a Mr. Heale were sitting on the front porch. The deceased asked to leave his locker trunk and tool chest at Mr. Lee's, but Mr. Lee told him he had no place to keep them and Mr. Heale suggested he check them at a bus station. The deceased then said 'I will go back around there and kill every damn one of them,' and picking up his luggage returned the way he had come.
In about fifteen minutes after he had left the deceased again showed up at appellant's home. He called to appellant to let him in. Appellant went into the hallway, carrying a single barrelled shotgun with him. He told deceased to return the next day when he was sober; that he (appellant) had to work the next day and could not be up all night with such foolishness. The decedent then called appellant a lying son of a bitch, and told him he guessed the reason appellant would not let him in was that he (appellant) wanted to go upstairs and sleep with decedent's wife. Appellant told deceased this was not true. Then according to appellant the decedent "wrested' back there and swung,' and the appellant without aiming fired the shotgun from the waist. The shot went through the screen door and entered deceased's left side at about the belt line. In the opinion of Mr. Grubbs, the State toxicologist, the shot was made at close range, and the course of the shot in deceased's body indicated that the gun had been fired at about the height of the wound and parallel with the ground, or floor.
Numerous witnesses, both for the State and the defense, testified as to deceased's bad reputation for peace and quietude. There is also abundant evidence to the effect that deceased had been arrested twice for carrying a switch blade knife since his marriage to appellant's step daughter, and that he had been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct; that he had on numerous occasions threatened to kill the appellant, and on one occasion had bought a switch blade knife for the avowed purpose of using it on appellant; appellant had had deceased arrested once and decedent had stated that if God spared him he would kill the appellant. Appellant knew of deceased's conduct, and of course of the threats.
The most compelling evidence against ...
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McDonald v. Brewer, Civ. A. No. 68-30.
...The State Supreme Court's denial of certiorari may be taken as some expression of that Court on the subject. Suggs v. State, 36 Ala.App. 66, 54 So.2d 794, 797, 1951, cert. den., 256 Ala. 388, 54 So. 2d 797. Indeed, the majority opinion of the Supreme Court of Alabama in Holt v. State, 1939,......
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Smiley v. State
...same as charge 9. On the other hand, the identical charge was held to be good in Wilson v. State, 243 Ala. 1, 8 So.2d 422; Suggs v. State, 36 Ala.App. 66, 54 So.2d 794; and Earnest v. State, 40 Ala.App. 344, 113 So.2d 517 which case seems to be the latest pronouncement on the However, in Pa......
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Grady v. State
...the charge has been uniformly approved since Kennedy, supra. In considering the same charge (Charge 37 in this case) in Suggs v. State, 36 Ala.App. 66, 54 So.2d 794, the court held that a refusal of the charge required a reversal. In doing so, it was noted that the principle stated in the c......
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Earnest v. State
...253 Ala. 670, 46 So.2d 705, does not exist here. Charge 5 (charge 1, Wilson v. State, supra) is a correct legal statement, Suggs v. State, 36 Ala.App. 66, 54 So.2d 794. Charge 13 should have been given, Sanford v. State, 37 Ala.App. 603, 75 So.2d 109, Holtbrook v. State, 38 Ala.App. 77, 76 ......