Court Opinion

ID: 9663922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:55:09.238645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:59.088572
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
HARWOOD, Judge.
In his brief in support of appellant’s application for a rehearing in this cause counsel for appellant urges that the lower court erred in permitting defense witnesses, Guthrie Wyatt, and Mrs. Lena Wyatt, to be cross examined, over appellant’s objection as to certain statements they had made to the Solicitor when seeking a warrant for appellant’s arrest.
Prior to the admission of this testimony Mrs. Wyatt had testified that on the Saturday evening in question the first she knew of the trouble she heard some screaming at appellant’s house. She went out to see what the trouble was, and observed Mrs. Idella Wyatt and the prosecutrix coming toward her house. The two “least children,” of appellant, according to Mrs. Wyatt, were at her house already.
It was then developed by cross examination of Mrs. Lena Wyatt that she had signed a written statement concerning appellant’s conduct, said statement being made in the presence of Judge Greene and the Solicitor, reduced to writing, and sworn to and signed by this witness. The witness was handed the statement, and read it.
She was then asked, over appellant’s objection if she had not, at this time stated: “Just about dark' last Saturday night, July 24, 1948, Leron’s small children came to our house hollering and crying and telling us their father, Leron Wyatt, was going to kill their mother and their sister, Mary Leona.”
This evidence was admissible as a prior statement of Mrs. Wyatt which was inconsistent and variant from the testimony she had just immediately given. Such testimony was of course ineffective as proof of any facts to which it related, but was admissible solely to impeach the witness, in that it tends to show that Mrs. Wyatt either had forgotten what she once knew, or willfully misstated facts either in the prior *158statement or in the trial below. See R.C.L., Vol. 28, Sec. 219; Am.Jur., Vol. 20, Sec. 458.
Guthrie Wyatt had testified that three of appellant’s young sons were at his house late in the afternoon in question when they heard appellant’s truck return home. The three boys then went to meet appellant, and in a few minutes returned solely to get some greens which they had left at Guthrie Wyatt’s house. Right after they left this time he heard some one “holler out” at appellant’s home and he started there to see what the trouble was.
Over appellant’s objection, but after establishing a full predicate for such testimony, the State was permitted to show through Guthrie Wyatt that he had made a statement to Judge Greene and the Solicitor, upon the occasion when he and his wife 'sought a warrant against appellant, to the effect thaf “Just about dark last Saturday night July 24, 1948, Leron’s small children came to our house hollering and crying and telling us their father, Leron Wyatt, was going to kill their mother and their sister, •Leona Wyatt.”
The same principles discussed above as to the admission of the inconsistent prior statement of Mrs. Lena Wyatt are equally applicable to the rulings in this instance. In addition it is noted that after Guthrie Wyatt and appellant’s counsel had read the signed statement, counsel announced he had no objection to the introduction of the whole statement.
Counsel further urges that the judgment entered in this cause is defective in that it fails to show the defendant was present in court at the time sentence was' pronounced, and fails to show that the defendant was asked if he had anything to say why the sentence of law should not be pronounced upon him. It is elemental of course that such omissions would render this judgment defective. However, it further appears from this record that in response to a writ of .certiorari' issued at the behest of the State, there was forwarded to this court a full and complete copy of the judgment entered by the court, certified to be correct by the clerk of the court below. jThis judgment is in all respects regular.
Application denied.