Court Opinion

ID: 9825277
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:27:52.626592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:38.782456
License: Public Domain

SAMFORD, J.
The evidence in this record tends to prove that the defendant and the father of the injured child had had some words about a road, they separated, and defendant armed himself with a double-barrel gun and came back to where the father of the child was at his mill, with his wife, a son about 14 years old, and this little fellow who was injured; that, when the defendant got near the mill, he got off his wagon, with his gun, and advanced towards the mill, where the father of the child was behind the engine, with his wife and the child sitting near, on the end of cross-tie. As defendant advanced, some words passed between him and the father, and defendant fired on the father; at about the same time he was fired on either by the father or the older boy, the. shot from defendant’s gun striking the child in the face and blinding him. There was some other evidence in 'the case which tended to show that, when the father dodged behind *614the engine, the defendant deliberately turned his gun on the child and fired; but this would have been the act of a fiend, and, in view of the good character proven for defendant, we have discarded that theory ,of the state in making the statement of facts upon which we predicate our conclusions. There was also some evidence on behalf of defendant that, in the first difficulty or altercation, the father had threatened to kill defendant. .
Taking the evidence most favorable to defendant, the child was an innocent bystander, and if the injury occurred during a rencounter, in which the defendant was justifiably defending himself from an unwarranted murderous assault, the injury would have been one of those unavoidable accidents, for which the law offers no redress. Tidwell v. State, 70 Ala. 33.
The defendant, on the trial, requested the court in writing to give several charges, correctly defining the law of self-defense when applied to a charge of felonious assault, and it is here urged that the court committed reversible error in refusing to give such charges, and if, as is contended, the defendant was in position to have pleaded self-defense, such charges should have been given; but the facts do not justify such a plea. The defendant had advanced on, and was in the act of attacking, his adversary, when he injured the child. He had had some words with the father earlier in the day; he had gone and armed himself, and returned to where the father was engaged with his own affairs, and advanced on him and fired the first shot, and the fact that the defendant had hitherto borne a good character, and the father of the child was a “mean man and dangerous character,” would not authorize the defendant to kill him. The evidence, taken in its most favorable light for the defendant, did not tend to establish self-defense, and therefore the charges requested were abstract and properly refused. Cooke v. State, ante, p. 416, 93 South. 86.
The rulings of the court upon the admissibility of evidence were without error.
We find no error in the record and the judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.