Court Opinion

ID: 9825402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:53:27.999861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:45.791574
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
The sheriff, a witness for the state, on cross-examination testified that the defendant “came to the jail and' surrendered to me, and told me that he was ready to give up.” Counsel for the defendant then asked' him, “Told you that he had arranged so that he could settle all the prohibition cases pending against him?” The court sustained the solicitor’s objection, and in so doing there was no error. This testimony tended to make evidence for'the defendant, and the declaration did not come within the rule laid down in Goforth’s Case, 183 Ala. 66, 63 South. 8.
"The defendant then asked the witness, “You had a number of conversations with Mr. Brindley, who was representing the defendant, and with the solicitor, who was prosecuting Montgomery, in an effort to settle these prohibition cases just before he came in and surrendered?” The objection to this question on the part of the solicitor was properly sustained.
The conversation called for was as to matters between third parties, and was clearly incompetent. Besides it is not disclosed as to the nature of the conversations called for. It was also incompetent for the defendant to show that within a few days after he surrendered he settled the prohibition cases against him. Assuming that his flight was on account of the pendency of these prohibition cases, it would be a far flight of the imagination to say that the fact that he settled these cases shortly after his surrender could in any wise throw any light on the cause of his flight. And the question, propounded to the sheriff, as to whether he knew how or what disposition was made of the prohibition cases, was equally objectionable.
The following question was then asked the witness:-
“At the time the defendant was dodging from those prohibition cases * * * there was a suspended hard labor sentence against the defendant for the violation of the prohibition law?”
This question was subject to the objection that it assumed as a conclusion that the defendant was dodging on account of the violation of the prohibition laws, and, if competent, there was better evidence of the suspended sentence.
It was an opinion and conclusion of the witness Turney that the defendant had been dodging the officers for four or five months because of the suspended sentence and the charges for violating the prohibition law, and for these reasons the objections to the question were properly sustained.
The question to the witness Jim Ward, “When you would see Montgomery, would he talk about coming in and giving up?” was patently objectionable. The question does not disclose the character of “talk,” and its relevancy does not appear.
The witness was then asked this question:
“Did he tell you he could not afford to give up because of several whisky cases against him, and did he tell you about a suspended road sentence?”
The trial court was not in error in overruling the objection of the state, on account of the last question about the road sentence,, if for no other reason. It does not appear how a road sentence could in the least have been relevant to any issue in the case.
The defendant’s witness, Dr. Brindley, was asked the following question:
“Did Will Montgomery tell you that he was dodging because of several prohibition cases pending against him and because of the suspended hard labor sentence?”
We do not think this conversation comes within the rule laid down in the Goforth Case, supra. The fact of the existence of these cases, and that they were not settled until the defendant gave himself up, was in evidence, and it was not for the defendant to give his reasons for evading the officers; this was a conclusion to be drawn by the jury from all of the evidence.'
As stated in the opinion in this case, the defendant by his testimony without objéction was permitted to give, not only the reason for his evasion, but the facts in connection therewith. We may here state that these 'facts and reasons were not only testified to by the defendant, but by other witnesses, both state and defendant’s witnesses.
In his application for rehearing the defendant, while admitting the above, contends that the defendant was entitled to make further corroboration of his and other witnesses as to these facts and reasons so testified to, and points out the corroborative testimony which he sought to introduce, and claims that the trial court erred in not permitting him to do so. We have therefore dwelt above specifically with each particle of the testimony in reference to which complaint is made, and are of the opinion that the exclusión of no part of it does violence to the rule laid down in the Goforth Case, supra, and that its exclusion was entirely in keeping with well-accepted rules of evidence governing such subjects. Certainly, to our minds, the defendant got the full benefit of all the testimony that could have shed any light on the fact or reasons for his flight, and we cannot see how he has been injured on account of the rulings of the trial court on this aspect of the case.
No grounds of objection were assign*217ed to the questions propounded to the witness Leldon Ward as to where his father, Lum Ward, was, and when he left. These questions were not subject to general objections. As we gather from the record, Lum Ward had testified as a witness for defendant at the former trial of Montgomery; his testimony tending to corroborate the contention of the defendant that he acted in self-defense, and it was this testimony of Lum Ward that had been offered in this case again for the defendant. If, then, the state could, it was permissible for it to show that Ward had left, and at what time he left; these facts to bo considered by the jury, along with his other testimony, in determining what credibility should be attached to his testimony. In addition, this was proving nothing more than that which was in effect agreed to in the beginning of the trial; that is, that the witness Lum Ward was absent.
Moreover, the witness Jim Ward testified without objection as follows:
“I do not know where my brother Lum Ward is now. As well as I remember he went off last fall. He was here at Montgomery’s former trial. After Will Montgomery was tried and convicted he left here. I do not know where he is now. His family is up at my father’s. I have not seen him since that time.”
Application for rehearing overruled.