Case Title: Adkins v. State

Citation: 287 So. 2d 451

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1973-11-08T00:00:00Z

Document:
287 So. 2d 451 (1973)
In re David ADKINS
v.
STATE of Alabama.
Ex parte STATE of Alabama ex rel. ATTORNEY GENERAL.
SC 345.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
November 8, 1973.
Rehearing Denied December 6, 1973.
William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen., and Richard F. Calhoun, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State, petitioner.
Wade H. Baxley and Alto V. Lee, III, Dothan, for respondent.
MERRILL, Justice.
The sole question in this case is whether the trial court erred in overruling the demurrer to the indictment charging the defendant with selling marijuana, where one of the grounds was that it failed to allege the name of the vendee. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the trial court did err. We granted certiorari and now hold that the ruling of the trial court was without error.
The indictment charged that the defendant "did sell, furnish, or give away marijuana contrary to law, against the peace and dignity of the State of Alabama." This indictment was in the terms of the statute, Act No. 1407, § 401, Acts of Alabama 1971, and listed in the 1958 Recompilation as Tit. 22, § 258(47) (a), which makes it a crime for "any person who possesses, sells, furnishes, gives away, obtains, or attempts to obtain * * *" certain listed "controlled substances" including marijuana.
In Duin v. State, 288 Ala. 329, 260 So. 2d 602, the following appears:
"We quote from Clark v. State, 19 Ala. 552:
In Jackson v. State, 91 Ala. 55, 8 So. 773 (1890), this court, per Coleman, J., (the grandfather of our present Justice Coleman), said:
Title 15, §§ 230 and 232 (then §§ 4366 and 4368) of the Code were cited and applied. The indictment in that case charged that Jackson "did attempt to feloniously take and carry" etc. This court held the indictment to be sufficient, even though there was no specific form for an "attempt" in the Code.
Title 15, §§ 230 and 232 provide:
In Jones v. State, 136 Ala. 118, 34 So. 236, the indictment charged that the defendant "did within the county of Hale, in the State of Alabama, sell spirituous, vinous or malt liquors, without a license and contrary to law." The indictment followed the statute and Form 79 in § 4923, Criminal Code, 1896. A demurrer was interposed on the ground that the indictment failed to allege the name of the vendee. The demurrer was overruled. The defendant contended that it was necessary to name the person to whom the sale was made. This court said:
The court rejected the contention that the statutory form was unconstitutional and stated: "The demurrer was properly overruled."
In Lawson v. State, 151 Ala. 95, 44 So. 50, the defendant interposed a demurrer to the indictment because it failed to allege to whom the defendant sold or gave away the liquor. The court held "that the demurrer *453 attacking the form of the indictment was properly overruled."
In Grace v. State, 1 Ala.App. 211, 56 So. 25, the contention that "the indictment must allege the name of the person to whom the gift was made [was rejected]."
In Freeman v. State, 4 Ala.App. 193, 59 So. 228, the court said: "The only question presented to us goes to the sufficiency of the indictment. The indictment was not subject to demurrer because it failed to name the party to whom the liquor was sold."
In Thomas v. State, 13 Ala.App. 421, 69 So. 413, the court was concerned with an indictment for perjury and the opinion contains the following: "But, as the law does not require that the name of the person to whom liquor has been sold be alleged in an indictment or affidavit charging another person with the selling (citations omitted), certainly it cannot be rationally contended that the law requires such name to be given in an indictment for perjury against one for testifying falsely in such a case as the former."
In Allen v. State, 33 Ala.App. 70, 30 So. 2d 479, the Court of Appeals, per Harwood, J., held an indictment for selling adulterated milk sufficient and said that Counts 1 and 2 which were in the terms of the statute "adequately informed the accused of the offense he was charged with committing, and the court properly overruled the demurrers thereto."
In Baker v. State, 39 Ala.App. 221, 96 So. 2d 821, the indictment charged that the defendant "did unlawfully expose or exhibit his sexual organs or private parts in a vulgar and indecent manner on a public road in Randolph County, Alabama, contrary to law." This followed the statute setting up the offense which is listed as Tit. 14, § 326(1) of the 1958 Recompilation. The court said:
In Griffith v. State, 47 Ala.App. 378, 255 So. 2d 48, cert. den. 287 Ala. 735, 255 So. 2d 52, 405 U.S. 1042, 92 S. Ct. 1317, 31 L. Ed. 2d 583, the Court of Criminal Appeals upheld an indictment against defendant for practicing law after disbarment which stated neither the name of the client nor the cause in which representation was furnished. The court said: "Where the offense is statutory it is sufficient to allege it in the words of the statute provided it sufficiently defines the crime."
In Young v. State, (Miss.), 245 So. 2d 26, the court said:
In People v. Adams, 46 Ill. 2d 200, 263 N.E.2d 490, the Supreme Court of Illinois said:
In Aggers v. United States, (8th cir.) 366 F.2d 744, the court said:
We note that the Seventh Circuit, en banc, as it reversed Lauer, stated in Collins:
Returning to our own state, we have examined all of the selling forms in the Codes prior to 1940 and the only forms which have required the name of the vendee are those in which an ordinary sale would be legal but the crime was selling to a certain specified class of people, such as a slave, an insane person or a minor.
Title 15, § 259, Code 1940, which contains our forms, includes Form 34selling prohibited liquors; Form 96sales by an unregistered dealer; Form 99selling or conveying mortgaged property; Form 100selling, removing or concealing personal property covered by a lien and Form 101selling securities not registered, and in no instance does the form require the name of the vendee.
The form of indictment for violating the prohibition laws that the defendant "sold, offered for sale, kept for sale, or otherwise disposed of spirituous, vinous or malt liquors contrary to law" has stood the test of time and practicability in this state. Literally thousands have been convicted under warrants or indictments following the form. We are not cognizant of any demand on, or movement in, the Legislature to change it through the years. In view of the long history of this type of indictment in Alabama, we continue to hold that it is not necessary to name the vendee of the drugs in the indictment, when the identity of the purchaser is not an element of a crime, the gravamen of which is the unlawful sale.
*455 Finally, we revert to Duin v. State, 288 Ala. 329, 260 So. 2d 602. In that case, we pretermitted "a determination as to what effect a demurrer raising omission of the name of the vendee would have had."
The instant case posed the question for the first time to the present court concerning an indictment for selling narcotics and we hold that it is not necessary for an indictment for selling narcotics, including the "controlled substances" listed in the statute, to contain the name of the vendee.
The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is reversed and the cause is remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
COLEMAN, HARWOOD, BLOODWORTH, MADDOX, McCALL, FAULKNER and JONES, JJ., concur.
HEFLIN, C.J., dissents.
HEFLIN, Chief Justice (dissenting):
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals. I concur in the opinion and the extended opinion on rehearing which the Court of Criminal Appeals filed in this case.
In Alabama we do not have bills of particulars or any discovery procedure in criminal cases; however, a defendant has a right to know the nature and the cause of the accusation against him in a criminal case. It is established that this is supplied through an indictment or information in felony cases.
It is interesting to observe that the State of Alabama, through the Attorney General's Office, admitted in oral arguments that the defendant was entitled to know the name of the vendee in this case. However, the State of Alabama argued that this court should establish in this case a rule of law which provides the defendant with the right on motion to discover the name of the vendee as a part of "due process." In this case there was no such motion and, therefore, there is no opportunity for this court to give consideration to the alternate approach urged by the State.
Title 15, Section 232, Code of Alabama, 1940, as amended (Recompiled 1958), establishes the requisites of an indictment in general.
However, section 230 of the same title provides that the forms prescribed by the Legislature are sufficient where applicable:
The court has gone to extremes in holding "that when the legislature, either in the body of a statute, or in a furnished form, has declared what shall be sufficient indictment, such legislative direction is controlling, and an indictment following such form will be pronounced good." Smith v. State, 63 Ala. 55 (1879). Thus, if a form is provided by the legislature, the indictment will be held good even though the indictment fails to aver some material element of the offense charged, subject to the constitutional requirement that the accused is to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.
Jinright v. State, 220 Ala. 268, 125 So. 606 (1929)
It would appear then that all of the form indictments for selling prohibited liquors, sales by unregistered dealers, etc. which do not purport to name the vendee are sustained under the rationale set out above, that is, since the form meets the basic constitutional requirement, it is sufficient because the legislature says so even though all material elements of the offense, i.e., the buyer, are not set out.
When there is no Code form for an offense, however, this court has taken a different approach. In Smith v. State, 63 Ala. 55 (1879), the defendant was indicted under a Code section for which no form had been provided. The indictment did not contain all the material elements of the offense charged, but did aver every material fact contained in a form for a similar offense, though in different language. In a well reasoned opinion the court concluded:
Moreover, even where the indictment substantially follows the language of the statute, if the statute does not prescribe with definiteness the elements of the offense, the indictment is invalid. In Mitchell v. State, 248 Ala. 169, 27 So. 2d 36 (1946) this court stated:
For a summary of cases holding an indictment bad which followed the wording of the statute, see, Gayden v. State, 38 Ala. App. 39, 80 So. 2d 495 (1954).
The statute in the instant case does make the selling of marijuana a criminal offense, but does not spell out the elements of the offense. It would seem that the elements would be (1) a seller, (2) the transaction, (3) the prohibited substance, and (4) the party who purchased the substance. The act of selling by its very nature requires these elements as a minimum. There must be a buyer as well as a seller. Since the buyer must be proved, it stands to reason that he should also be named in the indictment just as the other elements of the offense are.
In conclusion it would seem that in Alabama where there is a Code form provided for a selling offense, the identity of the *457 buyer need not be named, even though it is an element of the offense charged and must be proved; this because of this court's position with regard to Code forms. But where there is no Code form Section 232 applies, and every material element of the offense must be averred and proved, and failure to aver a material element of the offense should render the indictment demurrable.
Therefore, I respectfully dissent.