Court Opinion

ID: 9824858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 11:34:16.211409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:10.466156
License: Public Domain

SIMPSON, Judge.
This is a prosecution for bastardy against the appellant, originating by warrant in the Inferior Court of Tuscaloosa County, which court had preliminary jurisdiction of the' .case. Upon hearing the appellant was held in bond to the circuit court and there tried and, by the jury, found to be the father of the bastard child of prosecutrix, a single woman.
The verdict of the jury was as follows: “We, the jury, find the defendant, Lee Franklin, the father of bastard child, Frances Lee Turner. W. C. White, foreman.”
The record originally submitted in this court was imperfect, the judgment of the lower court seemingly inconsistent. Thereupon the Attorney General, responsive to the provisions of Supreme Court Rule 19, made motion for writ of certiorari to perfect a complete record of the proceedings of the trial of this case in the court below. On December 11, 1939, this court granted the motion and ordered issuance of the writ. Return thereof was duly made and filed in the office of the clerk of this court on December 19, 1939, and thereafter on January 18, 1940, the cause was again *308submitted. The judgment as appears by the perfected record is now regular and responsive to the verdict of the jury above quoted, and this latter record must be regarded as correct.
As recently announced by this court in Granston Rogers v. State, 193 So. 871,1 January 30, 1940, Court of Appeals Ms.: “Where there is any repugnancy between the contents of the original transcript, and that sent up as a return to a certiorari awarded by the court, the latter must be regarded as the true and correct record.”
The several insistences in appellant’s assignments of error, Nos. 1, 3, 4, and 5, that the judgment of the lower court is void for inconsistency, are, therefore, not well taken. Although the name of the bastard child appears in the verdict of the jury and not . in the transcript of the evidence, this could not render the proceedings void or the judgment erroneous. There was no conflict in the evidence as to who the parties were, either defendant or prosecutrix, nor was there dispute that the child had been born to the prosecutrix, a single woman. The controverted question was whether or not the appellant was the father of the bastard child. In such a proceeding the naming of the child was not necessary and the addition of its name to the verdict of the jury was of no prejudice to the defendant and will be regarded as surplusage. Cases analogous to this reasoning are: Robinson v. State, 54 Ala. 86; Berryman v. Judge of County Court, 9 Ala. 455; Agee et al. v. State, 190 Ala. 19, 67 So. 411.
It is next urged, in brief of appellant, that the trial court improperly sustained objection of the State to the effort on the part of counsel for appellant to cross-examine a physician,who was produced as a State’s witness, regarding certain tables described in the record as being in “Dr. Harper’s Volume on Clerical Obstetrics.” The table, is no't shown or described in the evidence and of course an appellate court could not determine, from the state of the record, just what probative value, if any, for the defendant such a table would have been in the cross-examination of the witness. The witness testified that “he knew and was familiar with Dr. Harper’s work in obstetrics,” but no further identification (other than the book and page of the volume) or description of the authority, if it be one, was given or attempted. The court correctly ruled on this objection. Relevant extracts from medical treatises are not in themselves self-proving but are admissible when recognized and approved by the medical profession as standard. (Italics ours.) Bales v. State, 63 Ala. 30; Merkle v. State, 37 Ala. 139; Stoudenmeier v. Williams, 29 Ala. 558; Anderson v. State, 209 Ala. 36, 95 So. 171. The volume in question was not shown to be a standard work or recognized authority on the subject at issue, and in the rejection by the court of the table there was no error.
In assignment of error No. 8, as well as No. 2, the appellant insists that the evidence was insufficient to submit the case to the jury and the court erred in refusing to give for defendant the general affirmative charge, and later in overruling motion for new trial. From a careful reading of the record, the court is of the opinion that the evidence was ample to justify the conclusion reached by the jury, and this court would not be justified in disturbing it.
It is finally insisted by appellant that the comment by the special prosecutor, in argument to the jury, “this case was tried before Judge Findley and this boy was bound over,” constituted such prejudicial error as to have required the trial court to have entered a mistrial or granted a new trial. In this we cannot agree. At most, this statement was but an explanation of the progress of the proceedings under the statute. 1923 Code of Alabama, Sections 3418, 3419. Furthermore, upon the objection to such statement by appellant, the court promptly and specifically instructed the jury not to consider it, and had such remark been inclined to prejudice the defendant before the jury it was thus cured.
Affirmed.

 Ante, p. 153.