Court Opinion

ID: 9527494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:31:02.732368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:49.497693
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
This court on original deliverance had painstakingly studied and discussed this case in consultation in connection with the applicable authorities so cogently pressed on us by counsel for appellant. We were convinced then and still are that to reverse the judgment would have been entirely without warrant.' We do, however, wish to make this brief response in deference to counsel’s argument on rehearing.
It is asseverated that by the court’s opinion counsel “has been taken to task” for failure to introduce certain witnesses and evidence. Suffice to say such was not the intent of the opinion, for the case was well tried.
It is argued that the court should not have mentioned as a circumstance against the defendant the fact that the two deputy sheriffs in the party of officers who were hidden in the garage were not produced as witnesses to corroborate the testimony of Vanderford and Thomas. The general principle, of course, is that no unfavorable inference may be drawn because of the absence of testimony where the absent witness is shown to have been equally accessible to both parties or that the testimony would have been cumulative. Coosa Portland Cement Co. v. Crankfield, 202 Ala. 369, 80 So. 451. The rule, however, is subject to some refinements. A party may not be expected to produce a witness likely to be unfavorable to him and if the other party has a witness possessing peculiar knowledge of the transaction and will probably be favorable to him and fails to produce such witness when he has the means of doing so, this in the absence of explanation is ground for suspicion that such better testimony would make against him. Carter v. Chambers, 79 Ala. 223; Alabama Power Co. v. Talmadge, 207 Ala. 86, 93 So. 548. Under this latter principle, therefore, we think our statement regarding the absence of corroboratory testimony of that of the two company deputies to have been justified.
We are “taken to task” with respect to our view of certain of the evidence, and perhaps rightly so in stating that the deceased lived in the Edgewater Village, whereas he lived in the adjoining community of “Capstown,” but such slight inadvertence could in no sense change the conclusion. And the same observation goes with respect to other criticisms of our interpretation of the evidence, including our statement that Vanderford was instructed to make an investigation and was in charge of same. The evidence is open to this inference, since it discloses that his superior officer, Davis, “instructed Vanderford to go to the Sheriff’s Office in Bessemer and have an investigation made of the incident.” Vanderford had already investigated, and notwithstanding the fact that the sheriff’s deputies did arrange to pick up the two company deputies that morning to make the investigation, if Vanderford were not in charge of the party he certainly took charge at the scene of the tragedy. We think counsel is in grievous error in urging us to conclude as a matter of law that Vanderford and Thomas were acting under direction of the sheriff’s office rather than that a substantial jury question was presented as to whether they were acting in line and scope of their own employment as company deputies.
Learned counsel for appellant also directs our attention to the following state*197ment in the opinion: “But the deceased was shot in the back, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary.” Although there was evidence from which the inference might be drawn that the deceased was not shot in the back (i. e., the statement in the death certificate that the immediate cause of death of the deceased was gunshot wounds of the chest, arm, and shoulder — although this would not necessarily mean the bullets entered from the front — and the testimony of the two deputies to the effect that deceased was shot as he was advancing towards them) and possibly a more correct appraisal of the testimony would be, there was no direct and positive evidence to the contrary rather than “there was no evidence to the contrary,” this does not change the conclusion, viz., there was from all the evidence in the case warrant for the jury’s conclusion that the deceased was not making a violent assault on the two company deputies.
We are constrained to adhere to the original conclusion.
Application for rehearing overruled.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and SIMPSON, GOODWYN and CLAYTON, JJ., concur.