Court Opinion

ID: 9825193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:16:38.90015+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:31.356815
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellant’s counsel are, it seems, intensely dissatisfied with our opinion. They are resourceful and acute; and challenge, with citation of authority, just about every ruling implicit in our decision.
But space forbids that we enter into or upon a differentiation of all the cases they cite —the opinions in which, we believe, in every instance, were written by the present author.
In retrospect, it is possible the ruling in Howard v. State, 24 Ala.App. 191, 132 So. 459, upon which they rely so confidently, should have been limited in its. effect to the facts of that particular case. And that same comment may be applicable to the holding in Phillips v. State, 25 Ala. App. 286, 145 So. 169; though we are not of the opinion that the pronouncements. *25in either case require, in any event, a reversal of the judgment of conviction in the instant case.
Appellant’s counsel say: “In this- case at several different places the State was permitted to prove over 'the timely objection of the defendant that the defendant drank some (whiskey — why would appellant’s said counsel forget that? — we interpolate) either in Jasper some 5% or 6 hours' before the accident and several miles from the scene of the accident, or .at the “County line” some 3% or 4 hours prior to the accident and some fifteen or sixteen miles from the scene of the wreck. The wreck happened about 9:45 (o’clock) ■or 10:00 (o’clock).”
And said counsel argue with extreme vigor that our own holding in the case of Vintson v. State, 22 Ala.App. 338, 115 So. 695, 696, requires us to order a reversal of the judgment of conviction here, because of the admission of the testimony mentioned.
But the counsel seem not to apprehend -the holding they cite in the said Vintson ■case. It was: “Testimony as to whether or not appellant was drunk at the time •of the fatal shooting was admissible as a part of the res gestee, but whether or not he cfell off a mule/ etc., some hours prior to the occasion, and at a place some miles removed from the scene of the difficulty was not relevant to any issue in the ■case.” (The use of the “etc.” after the words “fell off a mule,” we now regret. It only had reference to being “helped back on the mule.”)
We think the holding quoted was, and is, perfectly sound; but it has no application, that we can see, here.
In this case one of the charges against the young man, the appellant, was that he killed a man as a proximate result of operating an automobile while “under the' influence of liquor” — itself a misdemeanor. It seems to us entirely relevant and competent — perhaps, or possibly, material — to show that he had had some whiskey to drink 3% or 4 or 5 or 6 hours before the accident.
We don’t know, and the proof ■doesn’t show, that such could not possibly have tended to show that he was “under the influence of liquor” at the time of the accident. The weight of such evidence was of course for the jury.
We are persuaded no erroneous ruling was made during the course of the trial. But if we are in error as to this conclusion, certain it is the result of the trial indicates — we think conclusively — that no prejudice resulted to appellant. And Supreme Court rule 45 would stand as a bulwark to prevent our ordering a reversal of the judgment of conviction — even if some of said rulings were technically incorrect.
The application for rehearing is overruled.
Application overruled.