Wiley v. State

• Decision Date: 20 June 1893
• Citation: 99 Ala. 146,13 So. 424
• Parties: WILEY v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

13 So. 424

99 Ala. 146

WILEY v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 20, 1893

Appeal from circuit court, Pike county; John P. Hubbard, Judge.

Oliver Wiley was convicted of murder, and appeals. Reversed.

W. L Parks, for appellant.

Wm. L Martin, Atty. Gen., for the State.

McCLELLAN J.

The appellant was indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced for life, for the murder of his wife, Dora Wiley. The killing by him was not controverted, but he relied on self-defense. The evidence for the state tended to show that, a short time before the killing, the defendant "had made several threats that he was going to kill Dora, his wife, if she did not go home and cook his supper, and said that he was going to ask her to go, and if she did not, when he asked her, he would kill her. Said threats were made at the time when, and after, the defendant had gone to several to borrow a pistol. That defendant did borrow a pistol and went to where deceased was, *** and asked her to go home and cook his supper. Deceased refused to go, and defendant shot her with a pistol, which resulted in her instant death. That no weapon was found on the person of the deceased, and when she was shot she had a pocket handkerchief and bunch of keys, which she was holding in her hand, and that her hands were down, and in front of her person, and that she was standing still, when she was shot." The defendant testified in his own behalf that he borrowed the pistol, but for the purpose of shooting a dog. He denied having threatened deceased, and said that he had been threatened by her several times during the day, but admitted that he had been with her much of the time during the day, and that about a half hour before the killing he went off, about a quarter of a mile, and borrowed the pistol, with which he shot deceased, and approached her to get her to go home with him as she had been drinking, and that when he approached her she cursed him, and threw her hand towards her bosom, and stepped towards him, and he shot her. "Defendant also proved that deceased was a woman of dangerous character." The defendant then "proposed to prove by his own testimony and would have shown, that deceased owned a pistol, and was in the habit of going armed with her pistol; that she carried it in the bosom of her dress, and defendant knew these facts." The court refused to admit this evidence, and an exception to this ruling presents the only point reserved...