Case Title: Stain v. State

Citation: 138 So. 2d 703

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1961-12-21T00:00:00Z

Document:
138 So. 2d 703 (1961)
Thomas R. STAIN
v.
STATE of Alabama.
1 Div. 827.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
December 21, 1961.
Rehearing Denied March 22, 1962.
Wm. L. Green and Wm. O. Haas, Mobile, for appellant.
MacDonald Gallion, Atty. Gen., John F. Proctor and John C. Tyson, III, Asst. Attys. Gen., for the State.
LIVINGSTON, Chief Justice.
Appellant was tried and convicted in the Circuit Court of Mobile County, Alabama, of murder in the first degree and his punishment fixed at death by electrocution. This appeal comes here under the Automatic Appeal Statute, Sec. 382(1) of Title 15, Code of Alabama 1940 (Cum. Pocket Part).
Thomas R. Stain, the defendant in the lower court and hereinafter referred to as appellant, killed one Bernon T. Jenkins by shooting him with a pistol on the night of December 6, 1958.
*704 Jenkins was the manager of the Food Town Store on Old Shell Road in Spring Hill, Mobile County, Alabama. He was killed about 9:00 o'clock on the night of December 6, 1958. He closed the store, carrying out with him a bag of groceries and the day's receipts in money, amounting to $1,484, which was also in the grocery bag. He went to his car across the road, placed the groceries and money in the front seat, and was ready to get in the car when he was accosted by three men in an attempt to rob him. One of the men named Breazeale had a 38 caliber pistol which he dropped while struggling with Jenkins. At this time, the appellant, Stain, hit Jenkins on the back of the neck with an old model 32 pistol. The pistol discharged and the bullet entered Jenkins' neck and ranged upwards through the brain, killing him.
The evidence tended to prove a conspiracy to rob the deceased on the part of appellant and three others, and that they were together in the afternoon and early part of the night of the killing. The defendant confessed to the killing and claims the shooting was accidental.
Appellant claims it was error for the trial court to allow the state to introduce the revolver and cartridge that were found by the body of Jenkins and dropped by an accomplice of appellant when they attempted to rob the deceased and just before appellant killed deceased.
The appellant's confession referred to and identified a pistol dropped by an accomplice at the time of the killing. The custody of the pistol was accounted for by the state and such pistol used by his accomplice was properly admitted not only as being part of the res gestae but to corroborate appellant's confession. Blackburn v. State, 38 Ala.App. 143, 88 So. 2d 199, cert. den. 264 Ala. 694, 88 So. 2d 205 (vacated on other grounds), 354 U.S. 393, 77 S. Ct. 1098, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1423; Payne v. State, 261 Ala. 397, 74 So. 2d 630; Carter v. State, 219 Ala. 670, 123 So. 50. There was no error in the introduction of the revolver and cartridge.
Appellant also contends that the admission of testimony of a state witness detailing the movements and actions of appellant and his confederates prior to the killing and subsequent thereto was error.
The testimony objected to, in effect, tended to show that the appellant and two of his accomplices changed clothes and left Breazeale's house about 45 minutes before the killing, and that appellant and another person returned about one hour after the killing.
Appellant's confession tended to show a conspiracy to rob the deceased, therefore, evidence which tended to corroborate appellant's confession was admissible. Flanigan v. State, 247 Ala. 642, 25 So. 2d 685; Carr v. State, 21 Ala.App. 299, 107 So. 730. And any evidence going to show the ability and opportunity of the appellant to commit the crime or facts showing the circumstances leading up to and eventuating in the homicide are also admissible. Smith v. State, 253 Ala. 220, 43 So. 2d 821; Collins v. State, 138 Ala. 57, 34 So. 993. There was no error in this regard.
Testimony elicited by the state as to the dress of the appellant and his coconspirators, and others, preceding and following the crime, may have been immaterial and irrelevant, but the introduction of immaterial evidence is not reversible error unless it is injurious or prejudicial to the substantial rights of the defendant. Supreme Court Rule 45, Title 7, Code 1940, Appendix (Cum.Pocket Part).
The state introduced evidence of the confession by defendant, therefore, evidence as to the manner of his dress before and after the crime could not be prejudicial. The admission of said evidence was not reversible error.
*705 But the judgment of conviction must be reversed because of the voluntary statement of state witness, Lt. Burch, a police officer with 17 years' experience, which was so highly prejudicial that the substantial rights of the defendant were impaired.
The record discloses the following cross-examination of Lt. Burch:
In the first place, the statement made by Lt. Burch that "he told me about the time he shot two men up in Mississippi" was clearly unresponsive, incompetent, illegal and irrelevant for any purpose in this case, and the learned trial judge so ruled, and admonished the jury to disregard it, as above indicated. It must be conceded that if the situation was curable by admonition, the instructions were adequate for that purpose.
The decision of the question as to its eradicability is a delicate operation. It requires recognition of, without definitely drawing, the imponderable line where the broad legal discretion lodged in trial courts ends and the more objective review of appellate tribunals begins. Furthermore, the doctrine of harmless error must be given full play. The purpose of the doctrine is to cast upon the party complaining of technical or procedural errors the burden of showing that they have substantially affected his legal rights. In such cases, there is always the possibility, often the probability, that the prejudicial statement entered into the judgment, and the harmless error rule is not intended to save such a verdict from appellant condemnation.
Relating to harmless errors, it was said by Mr. Justice Rutledge in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S. Ct. 1239, 1248, 90 L.Ed. 1557:
We have many cases on the general question of whether improper remarks of counsel, unresponsive answers to questions, statements made, or acts done in the course of a trial, etc., can be eradicated by proper instructions by the trial judge, but we see no point in attempting to analyze them here.
It was said in the case of Cassemus v. State, 16 Ala.App. 61, 75 So. 267, 268:
See also Emerson v. State, 30 Ala.App. 248, 4 So. 2d 183, cert. gr. 241 Ala. 383, 4 So. 2d 186 (reversed on other grounds); and Bozeman v. State, 25 Ala.App. 281, 145 So. 165.
On conviction of first degree murder in Alabama, the jury fixes the punishment. In the instant case, after the case was submitted to the jury, and after some deliberation, the foreman of the jury reported to the trial judge that "we have agreed on the degree of the crime * * * but I think we are hopelessly deadlocked on the degree of punishment."
The trial judge, in part, told the jury:
The jury, after eating dinner, returned to the jury room and after further deliberation, returned the verdict above indicated.
True, there was no objection or exception, by the appellant, to any part of the proceeding outlined just above, and we do not base the reversal on it, but it is indicative that the poisonous effect of the voluntary statement of Lt. Burch that "He told me about the time he shot two men up in Mississippi" may not have been eradicated from the minds of the jury. So, in this case, we cannot say with fair assurance that the jury was not substantially swayed by the officer's statement, even though the learned trial judge did all that he could to eradicate it from their minds.
This is a death case and it is not an unwarrantable assumption that the jury experienced trouble arriving at a conclusion, and we cannot be certain that the statement of Lt. Burch was not placed in the scales in the formation of the ultimate judgment. These circumstances indicate more than a possibility that appellant's legal right to a fair trial was substantially impinged by the incompetent and prejudicial testimony.
Other matters argued in brief are not likely to occur on the retrial of the case and we do not consider them.
Reversed and remanded.
LAWSON, STAKELY and MERRILL, JJ., concur.