Court Opinion

ID: 9824767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 11:20:32.478195+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:03.136391
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
The defendant testified when examined as a witness that he had signed a mortgage to Ross at the time and place as testified to by. Ross and De Loach. He further testified that he signed same without reading it or requesting that it be read to him. He admitted that, at the time he sold the bale of cotton here in question, he had not settled or paid the mortgage, and that at the time of the sale of the bale of cotton to Burch he told Burch he would have to get the consent of Ross, the mortgagee. He also admitted that, after Ross had gotten the bale of cotton from Burch, by attachment he made settlement of the mortgage with Ross, and that the paper was delivered to him. Both Ross and De Loach,' who signed the mortgage as an attesting witness, testified to the execution of a mortgage by defendant and its recordation in the office of the judge of probate of Barbour county. Ross, De Loach, and the probate judge identified the copy, the contents of which created a lien on the bale of cotton sold by defendant to Burch. The defendant objects to the introduction of this copy in ovidenee on general grounds, and there is no ground of objection that a proper predicate had not been laid.
 It is the law that secondary evidence of the contents of a paper will not be received in evidence over timely and proper objection until the absence of the original has been accounted for, and, when the paper is in the possession of the defendant in a criminal case, proper demand must have been made upon him to produce the document. Wiley v. State, 16 Ala. App. 93, 75 So. 641; Jernigan v. State, 81 Ala. 58, 1 So. 72; Sims v. State, 155 Ala. 96, 46 So. 493; Nailer v. State, 18 Ala. App. 127, 90 So. 131; Snyder v. State, 78 Miss. 366, 29 So. 78.
An objection general and undefined,. however, does not raise the point that no demand had been made on defendant to produce the mortgage. Such was the objection here. The copy of the mortgage was legal, relevant, and material and was capable of being rendered admissible in connection with other evidence. The court did not err in overruling the general objection. Sanders v. Knox, 57 Ala. 80; Brannon v. State, 16 Ala. App. 259, 76 So, 991; Carroll v. State, 16 Ala. App. 454, 78 So. 717; Chambers v. State, 17 Ala. App. 178, 84 So. 638; Curb v. Dabbs & Tannehill, 19 Ala. App. 149, 97 So. 109.
The application is overruled.