Court Opinion

ID: 9825015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 11:54:07.658181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:19.982547
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
[5] No prejudice resulted from the action of the court in overruling appellant’s motion to exclude the statement of witness A. H. May, who testified in response to the question:
“Over there where you found the empty barrels, did you see any signs there?” Answer. “Looked like fresh signs there, and oxen hitched there had trampled the ground.”
In the first place, no objection was interposed to the question, and, if the answer of the witness was objectionable, because a conclusion, there was nothing hurtful in the answer sufficient to predicate error to a reversal. It is not unreasonable that a witness can distinguish the track of an ox from that of a mule or horse, as insisted by counsel for appellant; and while it would have been better practice to have required the witness to describe what he saw at the place in question and let the jury decide whether “oxen hitched there had trampled the ground,” this portion of the testimony was more or less immaterial, it being conceded that the offense complained of in the indictment had been committed by some one, and this appellant’s connection therewith was the material inquiry involved upon this trial.
, The evidence without dispute was to the effect that this appellant and one Eddie Jack Pool were found by officers driving an ox cart, and on this cart was a wash pot, a 6-foot copper rod, about 4 gallons of homemade whisky, some buckets, bottles, axe, wood, etc., and the tracks of the cart led to a place on the edge of a pond, where there were some barrels, a trough, and a place where a fire had been. Witness Adams testified that defendant, who was on the cart, had a bottle and was drinking when he first saw him, that he handed the bottle to Pool who also took a drink, and defendant hit the ox, but that he (witness) got in the creek and stopped him. There was also some evidence by witnesses May and Adams as to the confessions of defendant. The defendant denied that he had anything to do with the still or apparatus, cart, whisky, etc., and contended that he was merely riding on the cart with Pool by his invitation. He received the benefit of the testimony of himself and witness to the fact that he had gone to Malone, Fla., on the day in question and on his way home overtook Pool driving the ox cart and that he got off the buggy and got on the cart with Pool. He stated the still was on the cart at that time.
[6] Appellant complains that the court erred in not allowing him to prove by his witness Rogers what Pool said at the time defendant got on his cart. This testimony was not allowed, and properly so, for what Pool said at that time and place was not relevant or competent and the only effect this testimony could have had, and manifestly the purpose for which it was offered, was to bolster up the testimony of defendant and his witness Rogers, who testified as to the defendant getting out of the buggy and onto the cart, and giving his reasons therefor. The cases cited by defendant to sustain the correctness of this contention are not in point here. In each of the cases cited, the offense charged was murder in the first degree and comprehended and included several necessary constituent elements of such offense, i. e., premeditation, deliberation, willfulness, maliciousness, motive, etc., and, in order to rebut the insistence of the state that these several elements coexisted, it was held that the defendant could by competent evidence rebut such inference of unlawful motive by showing that he was merely present in a representative and official capacity. It would indeed appear to require a sanguine imagination to insist that an analogy in the case at bar with the cases cited exists. We do not think so, and are of the opinion that the court properly ruled in this connection.
• Other questions decided in the opinion have been again examined and are manifestly sound. There being no error, we adhere to the opinion and conclusion announced.
The application is overruled.