Court Opinion

ID: 9671332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:34:40.599977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:09.341788
License: Public Domain

On Application for Rehearing
Lindsay’s application says we have left eight unanswered questions. So as not to choke off any higher review because of our seemingly leaving out any facet of our consideration, we shall take them up seriatim with each followed by our answer.
Q. “2. Where a statute is general, is it sufficient in the indictment to merely follow its language, or must the indictment allege the specific offense coming under the general description of the statute in order to satisfy the constitutional right of the accused to be informed of the nature of the cause of action against him ?”
A. Omitting details of the path of our reasoning, we hold the indictment sufficient.
Q. “5. Is it reversible error to receive, over objection, evidence in a bribery trial of extensive lottery operations when the defendant is not shown to be connected with them and their relevancy to the issue are not shown?”
A. In this case it was not error because (1) the indictment alleged “an investigation of an illegal lottery operation,” and (2) if the court erroneously admitted evidence of there being in operation lotteries in addition to Lindsay’s “G. I.,” the error was harmless.
Q. “6. Can a tape recording of a conversation had with the defendant be offered in evidence without showing the voluntary character of the statement?”
A. Yes, unless it contains a confession. The conversation here was not a confession, but of the res gestae.
Q. “8. Is it error to admit in evidence, tape recordings of an alleged conversation between the defendant and two officers when no person who heard that conversation listened to the playing of the records in court and no one identified the conversation of the various voices?”
A. In this case the purported recordings were introduced through the testimony of Boyce. Boyce had seen the meetings of Lindsay with Love and Quinn, Boyce had hidden and removed the loaded Minifon on Love’s person on each of the three “bugged” meetings, Love corroborated the testimony of Boyce’s secreting and taking the machine on and from Love’s person. The court had theretofore heard Love and Quinn testify viva voce. By process of elimination, the third voice was Lindsay’s. The trial judge, on the playback out of the jury’s presence, had the duty (and discretion) to determine whether the unidentified voice presented a misleading resemblance to that of either Love or Quinn. We consider there was no abuse of that discretion.
Q. “9. Where a recording contains illegal evidence, can it be admitted and played to the jury in its entirety and the jury instructed to disregard the illegal evidence?”
A. It is claimed that a recorded statement, “This is a recording of a statement of Frank J. Lindsay,” was hurtful. The trial judge instructed the jury the statement so heard was not evidence. We do not here apply the rule in Kissic v. State, 266 Ala. 71, 94 So.2d 202, 67 A.L.R.2d 530, because the instruction removed the statement from evidence. There was no ineradicable harm in it.
*94Q. “10. Is it error to permit recordings of an alleged statement by the defendant to the jury without having the official court reporter take the audible portion down stenographically ?”
A. Under Wright v. State, supra, it would have been better to have done so: failure to do so, however, is not error.
Q. “11. Is it error to charge the jury in a bribery case that the defense of entrapment does not lie if defendant was already engaged in criminal conduct and to refuse requested charge that the criminal conduct engaged in must be of the same character as that in which he was entrapped in order to deprive him of this defense?”
A. It is argued that Lindsay’s prior conduct might partake of lottery but the jury could not fit this evidence to this part of the charge because the court’s language was imprecise. No 'exception was taken to the oral charge. Moreover, evidence of prior criminal conduct which might reasonably be considered as tempting a man to offer a bribe has probative value to negative entrapment.
Q. “12. Is it proper for the Judge to state in the presence of the jury ‘I think the recording was taken by Mr. Love in this matter’, referring to a recording offered in evidence by the State?”
A. The statement was of an undisputed fact, as we view the evidence. Even should it be thought of as relating to a contradicted matter, we see no harm in it.
The only other point which we think might not be sufficiently covered in the opinion on original deliverance related to the propriety of this court’s listening to the recordings.
By our oaths we are required to search the record in criminal cases as commanded by Code 1940, T. 15, § 389. In this connection we have held the omission of exhibits from a record precludes our review as to the sufficiency of the evidence. See Graham v. State, 40 Ala.App. 471, 115 So.2d 289, and authorities there cited; also Hobson v. State, 36 Ala.App. 471, 58 So.2d 898, where omission of handwriting specimens from appendix to appellate record prevented evaluation of testimony as to forgery.
Hence, if we may look at those things of which the jury, in Wigmore’s language, had “autoptic preference,” then by analogy we may listen to those of which they had auscultative preference.
Application overruled.