Title: Ex Parte Holifield

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

562 So. 2d 254 (1990)
Ex parte Clarence Ronald HOLIFIELD.
(Re Clarence Ronald Holifield v. State.)
89-332.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
March 23, 1990.
T. Jefferson Deen III and Gordon G. Armstrong III of Clark, Deen & Copeland, Mobile, for petitioner.
Don Siegelman, Atty. Gen., and Robert E. Lusk, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
SHORES, Justice.
Upon preliminary consideration, we granted the petition for the writ of certiorari to determine whether the opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals in this case conflicts with the opinion in Williams v. State, 520 So. 2d 179 (Ala.Cr.App.1987).
Specifically, we granted the writ to determine whether the trial court erred to reversal *255 in its oral charge to the jury, when it stated:
In Williams v. State the Court of Criminal Appeals held that it is error for the trial court to assert a legal presumption of truthfulness of witnesses' testimony. "This is not the law and is error." Id. at 181. The court said:
520 So. 2d 179, 181 (Ala.Cr.App.1987).
However, the stating of such a charge can be harmless error. Rule 45, A.R. App.P., states in pertinent part: "No judgment may be reversed or set aside, nor new trial granted in any civil or criminal case on the ground of misdirection of the jury, ... unless in the opinion of the court to which the appeal is taken or application is made, after an examination of the entire cause, it should appear that the error complained of has probably injuriously affected substantial rights of the parties."
We have carefully reviewed the trial court's oral charge to the jury in Holifield's case in its entirety. From our review, we conclude that any error by the trial judge was cured by the complete charge and was therefore harmless and caused no prejudice to the defendant. "The fact that isolated instructions are erroneous or misleading is no ground for reversal where the instruction as a whole presents the case properly." Harris v. State, 412 So. 2d 1278, 1281 (Ala. Cr.App.1982). See, in accord, Touart v. State, 562 So. 2d 625 (Ala.Cr.App.1989), Williams v. State, 538 So. 2d 1250 (Ala.Cr. App.1988), and Weaver v. State, [Ms. 1 Div. 748, December 1, 1989) ___ So.2d ___ (Ala. Cr.App.1989).
WRIT QUASHED AS IMPROVIDENTLY GRANTED.
HORNSBY, C.J., and MADDOX, JONES, ALMON, HOUSTON, STEAGALL and KENNEDY, JJ., concur.