Court Opinion

ID: 9825003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 11:53:17.0395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:19.668109
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
In his brief filed in support of appellant’s application for a rehearing counsel for appellant argues strenuously that we erred in holding that the trial court was not in error in permitting testimony timely objected to that appellant, when he returned the car and was told by Golden Hammock, in the presence of several other persons “Glen, you’re into it,” replied “You go back into the house and get a good night’s sleep, I’m the man *550that’s into it and I will take the blame.” The grounds of objection to above was that it did not tend to show guilt or a consciousness of guilt, and because not a confession. The appellant’s counsel argues that if we adhere to our former opinion we are by indirection overruling prior opinions, which cannot be distinguished from the present case, particularly, Wallace v. State, 25 Ala.App. 334, 145 So. 583; Gilbert v. State, 25 Ala.App. 169, 142 So. 682; Johnson v. State, 24 Ala.App. 316, 134 So. 821, and Mathews v. State, 21 Ala.App. 173, 106 So. 206. We do not agree with counsel’s contention.
In the Wallace case, supra, the appellant and a young boy were captured when a group were “flushed” at a still. When apprehended appellant told the young boy, who had begun to cry, “Hush crying there is no use crying, they have caught us and there is no use to cry, just a year and a day.” No witness claimed to have seen either Wallace or the boy doing anything in connection with the still. The court pointed out that other than the above facts there was nothing upon which to rest a verdict of guilty, and that it was axiomatic that mere presence at a still was no crime. The record in the present case is replete with evidence tending • to establish appellant’s guilt. We do not therefore consider the Wallace case decisive of the present case, nor overruled by it, because of the difference in facts.
In the Gilbert case, supra, the appellant had been convicted of violating the prohibition law. Whiskey had been found in his dwelling house. The deputy solicitor was. permitted to testify over appellant’s objection that in a conference appellant had said “They have caught me about this liquor and there is no way I can get out of it.” On cross examination the deputy solicitor testified that appellant had talked about settling the case against him the cheapest and easiest way. The court expressly held that whatever statements made by Gilbert in his conversation with the deputy solicitor were clearly an effort to compromise the case and were not admissible. The court further said that Gilbert’s statement was not inculpatory nor an admission of guilt. The background of an effort to compromise indicated such interpretation of Gilbert’s statement. By no stretch of the imagination could Lindsey’.s statement be said to be made in an effort to compromise his case.
The statement in the Mathews case held erroneously admitted was to the effect that the appellant in that case had said that, “He would plead guilty if they wouldn’t put no sentence on him.” The conditional character of the statement negatives its confessory or inculpatory character completely.
In the Johnson case, supra, the appellant while in jail, had allegedly told a State witness he was going to plead guilty. Pointing out that such action could have been prompted by many motives, the court held it was in no way an admission of guilt. The distinction between the Johnson case and the present case is in our opinion obvious.
We think the statement made by appellant Lindsey to Golden Hammock in the present case well within and governed by the general rule that any statement or conduct indicating a consciousness of guilt, where at the time or thereafter a person is charged with crime, is admissible as a circumstance against him on his trial. Holmes v. State, 29 Ala.App. 594, 199 So. 736; Montgomery v. State, 17 Ala.App. 469, 86 So. 132; Jones v. State, 181 Ala. 63, 61 So. 434.
Application overruled.