Court Opinion

ID: 9825185
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:15:51.569803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:31.038272
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Upon reconsideration of this case we have concluded that an error was committed for which the judgment of conviction must be reversed.
• One of the charges included in the indictment against appellant was that he did “willfully, corruptly, and falsely” swear that he and his wife, Maude Tyson, “lived together as man and wife until the 16th day of February, 1936, when she left me (him).”
Upon his trial, appellant swore that the matter in the quoted allegation was true.
His wife, Maude Tyson, swore that it was false — thus creating a conflict between his testimony and hers that, for all we can say, the jury may have considered material.
In this state of affairs, after the witness Maude Tyson had testified without objection that Mr. Wallace (an attorney practicing at the bar) was “representing her :here now” — meaning at the trial of appellant, below — she was asked by appellant’s counsel: “What fee have you agreed to pay him?”
Objection by the State to the above* question was sustained by the court. And in this we think error- — -which may have been very prejudicial to appellant — was committed.
The principle of law involved is exactly that given statement, upon what we yet think ample authority, by our holding on rehearing in the case of Williams v. State, 21 Ala.App. 227, 107 So. 37.
The application for rehearing is granted, the former judgment of affirmance is set aside; the opinion thus extended; and, for the error indicated the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.
Application granted; reversed and remanded.