Court Opinion

ID: 9658972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:24:33.733919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:02.567671
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Two main points in support of White’s application are (1) that the solicitor, in cross examining White’s character witnesses, asked questions designed to impute to him guilt of offenses otherwise inadmissible; and (2) that the solicitor’s cross-examination as to character was not confined in time to the period before the commission of the offense charged.
*62Cross-examination is permissible to explore a witness’s knowledge of the subject for which the other party has produced him. And the State comes within the Code section, T. 7, § 443; Endsley v. State, 26 Ala.App. 605, 164 So. 396.
That this process permits the State to ask character witnesses questions which, if fabricated or merely rhetorical, would be accusations (whether feigned or true) of other offenses, is one of the balanced choices which the law must often make. The control — which involves good faith and legal ethics — must (except as we mentioned in the foregoing part of this opinion) be left largely to the trial judge’s discretion. We see no abuse of discretion here.
The rules as to impeachment of evidence as to the defendant’s reputation generally are set forth in Thomas v. State, Ala.App., 122 So.2d 731,1 rehearing denied May 24, 1960. But the rule of limiting testimony of repute, to the date of the offense is not brought into play because the trial judge did not have put to him a request thereon.
The solicitor asked two defense character witnesses whether or not the witness had heard White had driven a car two years without a driver’s license. The failure to limit the time to before August '23, 1958, made the question objectionable. See Thomas v. State, supra. However, the defense objected on the specific ground that the question sought to bring in commission of another unrelated offense. The specification of one ground for an objection waives all others. Pope v. State, 39 Ala.App. 42, 96 So.2d 441.
As to the refusal of charge 44, we consider the effect of the quoted part of the oral charge and of charges 12, 13, 16, 30, 37 and 42 (quoted above) was an ^adequate .expression. Charge 30 in particular conveys virtually the same thought.-
There was no error in the refusal of charge 46:
“The court charges the jury that defendant cannot be convicted in this case unless each and every - juror is not only reasonably satisfied from the evidence of defendant’s guilt, but is satisfied from the evidence and the evidence alone, beyond all reasonable doubt, and to a moral certainty, of his guilt.”
Code 1940, T. 7, § 273, says in part: “The refusal of a [correct] charge, * * * shall not be cause for a reversal * * * if * * * the same rule of law was substantially and fairly given * * * ' in charges given at the request of parties.” (Italics supplied.)
White’s charge 16 which the judge read to the jury pointed out that the presumption of innocence requires proof convincing “every member of the Jury” to a moral certainty, etc. The giving of charge 16 was sufficient notice, fair and substantial in meaning, to direct that all of the jury must join in the verdict.
Application overruled.

. Ante, p. 19.