Court Opinion

ID: 9677688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:57:31.546571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:57.635383
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
Oden, in his brief for rehearing, urges:
“We do not insist upon the fact that the verdict as received by the Court has to be in writing, nor do we insist.. upon the fact that it is mandatory for the Trial Judge to give instructions to the Jury as to the possible verdicts. We have not contended in our original brief nor in this brief that the Judge was in anywise in error in undertaking to explain the elements of the various offenses. * * * once, however," the instructions are given * * * the jury should obey the instructions of the *217Court even though these instructions be erroneous * * *
“ * * * We contend that once the Jury is given the possible verdicts, that these possibilities are based upon the evidence just as all the other portions of the instructions, and that such instructions spring from the evidence and are just as much a part of the ‘theory of the Law as charged by the Judge,’ as are any other portions of the instructions.”
To support this contention, he cites the following cases: Fleming & Hines v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 148 Ala. 527, 41 So. 683; New Hampshire Fire Ins. Co. v. Curtis, 264 Ala. 137, 85 So.2d 441; Salter v. Turner, 24 Ala.App. 67, 130 So. 163; Hagan v. State, 25 Ala.App. 33, 140 So. 185; and Booth v. S. & H. Laboratories, Inc., 39 Ala.App. 615, 105 So.2d 879.
From the last of these opinions we take: “A verdict contrary to the law as contained in an instruction by the court will be set aside, whether the instruction be right or wrong.”
Code 1940, T. 7, § 270, provides, in part:
“The court may state to the jury the law of the case * * * ”
In the instant case, if we were to concede that the failure to give a form of verdict of guilt of distilling (contra formam statuti, T. 29, § 103) was error, nevertheless, under the rule of Peterson v. State, 227 Ala. 361, 150 So. 156, no harm can be ascribed to the trial judge’s omission of this formality because his attention was not called to this ■oversight.
Code 1940, T. 7, § 273, provides for the submission by either party of requested written charges to supply supposed omissions in the oral (or general) charge of the court. This request in writing is a condition precedent to putting a trial judge in error for whatever he may leave out of his instruction.
Application overruled.