Court Opinion

ID: 9670616
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:23:30.576683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:05.642995
License: Public Domain

*360ON REHEARING
BLOODWORTH, Justice.
This cause came to this court on petition for writ of certiorari. The writ was granted. This is the second time this cause has been before this court. (For the former opinion this court rendered, see Buckles v. State, 291 Ala. 352, 280 So.2d 814 [1972].)
Upon original deliverance in the present cause, a majority of the justices concluded that the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals should be reversed and remanded.
On application for rehearing and upon further consideration, a majority of the justices have now concluded that the application for rehearing should be granted, the opinion and judgment of this court heretofore rendered on June 7, 1973 should be set aside, this opinion should be substituted therefor and the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals should be affirmed, all for the reasons hereinafter set forth. It results, of course, that the opinion rendered for the court on the former submission, Buckles v. State, 291 Ala. 352, 280 So.2d 814 [1972], is overruled.
The clear effect of the oral charge in this case is to place upon defendant the burden of explaining his possession of recently stolen goods — thus of proving his innocence. The burden of proof is on the State to prove defendant’s guilt.
As pointed out in the exhaustive opinion on former submission, Buckles v. State, 291 Ala. 352, 280 So.2d 814 [1972], the older cases of our court, as well as those of the Court of Appeals, have indicated defendant had such burden. Clearly, however, modern authority is to the contrary.
Almost identical charges were condemned by the Court of Criminal Appeals in Haynes v. State, 45 Ala.App. 31, 222 So.2d 183 (1969), and in Reed v. State, 47 Ala.App. 617, 259 So.2d 304 (1972). We think these decisions are correct.
A charge to effect that the unexplained possession of recently stolen property is a circumstance from which the jury may infer that the defendant is guilty of stealing it, was recently upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeals in Chadwick v. State, 47 Ala.App. 529, 258 So.2d 62 (1972).
Judge Cates, in concurring with Judge Tyson’s opinion for the Court of Criminal Appeals (in that court’s original opinion in this cause, 50 Ala.App. 548, 280 So.2d 810), suggests a form for such a charge. It does not directly place a burden on defendant, which we consider to be the vice in the charge in the instant case.
Moreover, the United States Supreme Court in the recent case of Barnes v. United States, 412 U.S. 837, 93 S.Ct. 2357, 37 L.Ed.2d 380 [1973], upheld a charge quite similar to that suggested by Judge Cates, viz :
“ * * * ‘[possession of recently stolen property, if not satisfactorily explained, is ordinarily a circumstance from which you may reasonably draw the inference and find, in the light of the surrounding circumstances shown by the evidence in the case, that the person in possession knew the property had been stolen.’ ”
The Supreme Court held, inter alia:
“ * * * what has been established by the cases, however, is at least this: that if a statutory inference submitted to the jury as sufficient to support conviction satisfies the reasonable doubt standard (that is, the' evidence necessary to invoke the inference is sufficient for a rational juror to find the inferred fact beyond a reasonable doubt) as well as *361the more-likely-than-not standard, then it clearly accords with due process.”
Application for rehearing granted.
Original opinion and judgment set aside.
Affirmed.
HEFLIN, C. J., and COLEMAN and FAULKNER, JJ., concur.
JONES, J., concurs specially.
MADDOX, J., dissents.
MERRILL, HARWOOD and McCALL, JJ., concur.