Court Opinion

ID: 9688656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:59:43.921595+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:40.978151
License: Public Domain

On Application for Rehearing
MERRILL, Justice.
In his brief in support of the application for rehearing the Attorney General states: “A careful reading of the record in the instant case makes it extremely questionable that the defendant was prejudiced either by the playing of the audograph record or the judge’s statement concerning the availability of Curtis Harper.” The statement concerning the availability of Harper is set out in our opinion and we deem no additional comment to be necessary. But we do think it is proper, in view of petitioner’s argument, *77to show that the record does disclose that the audograph record, which was played in the hearing of the jury, contained prejudicial matter. We quote one question and answer:
“Q. What did Mr. Kissic do, if anything ?
“A. Well he was there, Kenny said, I couldn’t see when Nile hollored for me right when he cut him and when he did I made the dive for him and one of them, Onnie I believe, I don’t know which one, but when he run at him he knocked me back and I run again up there to get Nile, when I hit him with the coffee pot somebody knocked me back I don’t know who done it, when I started to him and Kenny said that Onnie was holding him which he was down there right up under him, he had to be holding him.” (Emphasis supplied.)
It is so obvious that this was hearsay that no comment is needed except to note that this was the only information the jury received from any witness that defendant was “holding” deceased.
The State also insists in brief that our opinion in the instant case is susceptible to a construction that no part of a recording can ever be played to refresh the recollection of a witness. We do not intend to so hold. As already stated in our original opinion, Mrs. Collard testified that she did not remember being put under oath and making a statement to the Solicitor and others. (This was the statement contained on the audograph record.) The recording was offered, played and received in evidence solely for the purpose of refreshing the witness’ recollection. If that had been the sole purpose, the preliminary part of the record — the who, what, when, and where — could have been played; the witness could have heard her own voice enough to positively identify it, and at the same time no prejudice could possibly have resulted. We illustrate by transcribing the first three questions and answers from the record:
“Q. Is this Mrs. Margie Collard? A. Yes.
“Q. Would you raise your right hand, Mrs. Collard and let me swear you in, please. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God. A. I do.
“Q. We would like for the record to show that this statement is made in the Talladega County Courthouse in the courtroom at fifteen minutes till 9:00 o’clock on Tuesday night November 8, 1955 and present is Mrs. Ann McKinney, Court reporter, Mr. James Cooper; deputy sheriff, Mr. Buster Hogan, photographer, Mr. Bill Barber, deputy sheriff and John W. Robinson, Sheriff of Talladega County and myself, Circuit Solicitor and Mrs. Margie Collard. Now, Mrs. Collard I am going to ask you please ma’am just to tell me in short rendition form, just what happened from the time that you got up this morning, just start and tell what happened? A. Well, me and Nile Collard left early this morning and went to Childersburg for me to do the laundry while he taken Kenny to the doctor and we done that and come back home and hung the clothes out and we left and went straight from there coming to Talladega and we stayed up here waiting on Mr. Teel to see him about getting remarried and we didn’t get to see him and it was about, the best that I know, about 2:00 o’clock when we left from here going back home. Well, we went home straight from here we went home and when we went through the back door at the house somebody had already been there because the water bucket was gone and the door was opened and Nile told me, he says ‘Well I guess probably they have been up here,’ he meant Onnie and Harper and so he says ‘I am going on and change clothes, I have got to go to work, and I think I will just call and get off and *78stay with you’. But he didn’t, he went on in the bedroom and I don’t know where that he changed clothes or not. Before he got — as he started back through the kitchen where I was they come up in the car and pulled right there at the door.”
The playing of this much of the record would have been ample to refresh recollection, could not have been prejudicial to the defendant and would have been entirely proper. But the playing of the entire record before the jury, involving the first quoted excerpt, was error which was not eradicated by the court’s instruction that the recording was not testimony and should not be considered as evidence.
The application for rehearing is overruled.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON and STAKELY, JJ., concur.