Court Opinion

ID: 9825069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:02:01.15165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:23.450160
License: Public Domain

On Application for Rehearing.
On application for a rehearing the Assistant Attorney General urges that on the-authority of Bell v. State, 140 Ala. 57, 37 So. 281, 285, charges 1 and 2 in the instant case were properly refused.
We did not overlook the Bell case, and we studied it with considerable care. It there appears that the defendant’s plea of' not guilty by reason of insanity was strenuously stressed in the evidence. In passing on the action of the lower court in refusing a large number of written instructions, Justice Tyson stated: “However this may be, under the issues upon which the case was tried all the charges were properly refused.”
We think that it is here indicated that the court regarded the question of insanity vel non to be the prime factual issue. The matter of the refusal of the charges seems to have been slightly considered in view of the manner of their tender.
It is true that in the case at bar a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity was interposed. However, there was no evidence to support the plea.
The defense of drunkenness ..as a legal excuse for the commission of the alleged offense was available to the accused' under the plea of not guilty and without reference to the special plea. Granberry v. State, supra.
If we are mistaken in our interpretation of the opinion in the Bell case, wc are faced with the holding in the Gran-berry case which is a subsequent pronouncement of the Supreme Court. We think that this latter case is in point and controlling; and of course we must take it as our guide. Title 13, Sec. 95, Code 1940.
Application for rehearing overruled.