Title: Willingham v. State

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

80 So. 2d 280 (1955)
Joe Buck WILLINGHAM
v.
STATE of Alabama.
6 Div. 562.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
March 10, 1955.
Rehearing Denied May 19, 1955.
*281 DeGraffenried & DeGraffenried, Tuscaloosa, for appellant.
Si Garrett, Atty. Gen., and Maury D. Smith, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
MERRILL, Justice.
The appellant Joe Buck Willingham was indicted for the offense of murder in the first degree. The jury found him guilty of murder in the second degree and he was sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of thirty years. From the judgment and sentence he appealed.
The evidence for the State tended to show that appellant and his brother, James Willingham, engaged in a fight with the deceased, Deward L. Brown, in a combination tavern and dance hall; that James Willingham cut the deceased while appellant pinned the deceased's arms behind him and deceased bled to death from the wounds so inflicted.
James Willingham was tried first and received a sentence of life imprisonment from which he appealed. Joe Buck was tried at a subsequent term of court. His case had been submitted to this court prior to our decision in James' case, which was affirmed.
Many of the assignments of error in the instant case raise the same questions that were presented in the first case and they are considered in the case of Willingham v. State, 261 Ala. 454, 74 So. 2d 241. Having already treated them there, and having again considered them in the light of our holding in that case, we discuss here questions new to the instant case.
The appellant assigns as error the action of the court in overruling his challenge for cause of the juror, Wallace. The questions propounded to this juror and the answers given by him tended to establish the following:
Wallace had heard the case discussed and informed the court that if what he had heard discussed about the case was corroborated it "might have some effect" on his verdict. On further examination he stated in answer to the question whether he would go by the evidence from the witness stand in arriving at his verdict, "I'll do my best, but I have heard a lot of things in regard to it. Of course, if they were corroborated on the witness stand." Later after having been asked several questions by the court as to the effect of what he had heard would have on the verdict he would render, he was then asked by the court, "* * * is it your opinion that you could render a verdict according to the evidence, whatever evidence is brought from the witness stand?" The juror replied, *282 "I think so, yes sir." The court then asked, "That's your best judgment that you would do that?" His answer was, "Yes sir." The court refused to disqualify the juror and this ruling did not constitute reversible error.
Our statute, Code of 1940, Title 30, § 55(7) reads:
And § 56, Title 30 provides that this ground is proved "by the oath of the person alone".
In Peterson v. State, 227 Ala. 361, 150 So. 156, 159, certiorari denied 291 U.S. 661, 54 S. Ct. 439, 78 L. Ed. 1053, the court said:
The answers of the juror Wallace do not disclose that he had a fixed opinion which would bias his verdict but he stated plainly that he could render a verdict according to the evidence. In the Peterson case, supra, the court also said:
Assignment of error No. 64 charges that the trial court erred in making the following statement in his oral charge: "In other words if a man assaulted you with his fist, you wouldn't be supposed to shoot him with a gun to resist the assault on you with his fist, * * *."
This statement, when viewed alone, is not strictly correct. There are times when exceptional and unusual circumstances may justify the use of a deadly weapon against an unarmed man.
Here the charge given by the Judge must be viewed in the light of his statements immediately preceding and following that portion heretofore quoted:
When the charge is viewed as a whole, it is clear that no reversible error was committed. There are no unusual or exceptional circumstances in this case which would bring it within the principle of the Davis case, supra.
Assignments of error 68 and 69 deal with the failure of the trial court to give two requested written charges. Neither of the charges is predicated on belief from the evidence and both were properly refused. In Payne v. State, 261 Ala. 397, 74 So. 2d 630, 639, we said: "The proper hypothesis for a requested charge in a criminal prosecution is rested on belief from the evidence. Wesson v. State, 251 Ala. 33, 36 So. 2d 361." See Johnson v. State, 257 Ala. 644, 60 So. 2d 818.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON and STAKELY, JJ., concur.