Court Opinion

ID: 9686065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:23:56.169872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:18.062496
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
CATES, Judge.
Counsel for Scott contends-that we have overlooked the following adverse ruling of the trial judge shown at Page 24 of the record:
“Q Did he ever pull the trigger on the gun ?
“A If he did, I don’t know it; it didn’t shoot you know what I mean.
“Q Didn’t shoot ?
“A No, sir.
“Q He could have shot anybody if. it were a real gun—
“MR. PFLEGER: Object to that, if the Court please.
“THE COURT: Sustained.
“MR. HAAS : .Do you know of. anything that would have prevented him from doing it?
*152“MR. PFLEGER: Object to that, if the Court please.
“THE COURT: Sustain the objection.”
We consider that the ruling of the trial judge in sustaining State’s second objection was eminently correct. We construe Mr. Haas’s question as seeking to find out if the witness Harrington was cognizant of the mental processes or visible outward manifestations thereof exhibited by the defendant. The question was too vague and, therefore, was objectionable.
The appellant complains of the language used in the next to the last paragraph of our opinion on original deliverance to the effect that the defendant did not complain of the lack of a speedy trial after he got into circuit court.
Counsel points out that Scott, on the 30th day of January 1967, filed a demand for a trial by jury.
As we construe this pleading, it seems to have been attached as an endorsement to the appeal bond approved by the Recorder which was the first pleading filed in the circuit court. This we also construe as being employed to prevent the waiver of the right to a jury trial but we do not construe it as a demand for a speedy trial.
In Ex parte State ex rel. Attorney General, 255 Ala. 443, 52 So.2d 158, the court apparently approved the majority view as reflected in Headnote 5, which reads:
“Demand for trial or objection to postponement of trial or some other effort to secure speedy trial on part of accused ordinarily must be affirmatively shown in order to entitle accused to discharge on ground of delay. Const.1901, § 6.”
Since the defendant was not in the penitentiary or in jail, the ratio decidendi in Ex parte State ex rel. Attorney General, supra, would not be present here since that case related to a prisoner who apparently was disadvantaged in obtaining witnesses, etc., by reason of imprisonment or incarceration.
In sum, we hold that Scott’s failure to make an express demand for immediate trial does not entitle him to complain later about any delays. Elliott v. State, 283 Ala. 67, 214 So.2d 420.
Application overruled.