Case ID: ala_114/html/0019-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "McCLELLAN, J. —", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Williams v. The State.
    
      Indictment for Murder.
    
    1. Credibility of witness; charge to the jury in reference thereto. Proof of contradictory statements or declarations on a material point by a witness may be sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of,the jury'as to the truth of the testimony of such witness, and charges which so instruct the jury assert a correct proposition and should be given.
    Appeal from the Circuit Court of Washington.
    Tried before the Hon. William S. Anderson.
    The appellant, ■ Samp Williams, was indicted, tried and convicted, with one Will Wood, for the murder of one Chris Chambliss, “by hanging him with a rope.”
    The charges, upon the refusal to give which the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded, are sufficiently set forth in the opinion, and it is unnecessary to set out the other rulings of the court to which exceptions were reserved.
    Samuel B. Browne and Charles L. Bromberg, Jr., for appellant. —
    The charge “that proof of contradictory statements or declarations on a material point made by the witness, John Hollinghead, may be sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury as to the truth of the testimony of the witness, John Hollinghead,” is a literal copy of a charge held good in Gregg’s case. — Gregg v. State, 106 Ala. 44; Washington v. State, 58 Ala. 356.
    William C. Fitts, Attorney-General, for the State.
   McCLELLAN, J. —

Charge 11 requested by defendant, “That proof of contradictory statements or declarations on a material point made by the witness, John Hollingheadj may be sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury as to the truth of the testimony of the witness, John Hollinghead,” and charge 12 of the same tenor as to the witness, Aaron Hollinghead, should have been given.— Washington v. State, 58 Ala. 356 ; Gregg v. State, 106 Ala. 44, 49.

There is no merit in the remaining exceptions reserved on the trial below.

Reversed and remanded.