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105 Ala. 57

Scott v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1894

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1894-11-15

Tried before the Hon. Thomas M. Arrington. The appellant was indicted, jointly with one Bill Williams and Trance Singleton, for the murder of Meredith Sledge, was granted a severance, tried separately and convicted of murder in the second degree, and was sentenced to the penitentiary for fifteen years.

Relies on Johnson v. State · Pate v. State · Barnett v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1894-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently January 1947

7 state decisions

40189419001910192019301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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HARALSON, J.

¶1The charge on which we are requested to review this case, asserts the proposition, that proof of good character, “may be sufficient to generate a reasonable doubt of guilt, although no such doubt would have existed but for such good character.” It is clearly subject to the vice, that it gives undue prominence to the proof'of character.—Goldsmith v. The State, ante p. 8; Grant v. The State, 97 Ala. 35.

¶2We would not impair the value of the proof of good character, in the trial of a defendant charged with crime. Let it be made, always for its full value, to be considered in connection with all the other evidence in the cause, but never independent of it, to generate a doubt of defendant's guilt.

¶3Nor would we deny, that there are cases, where proof of good character may and ought to generate a doubt, when, without such proof, the jury would be satisfied of the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

¶4The charge in hand, similar to the one in Johnson v. The State, 94 Ala. 39, is subject to the further condemnation, that it was calculated to convey to the jury the impression that they might consider the-proof of good character by itself, independent of the other evidence, and that when so considered it might generate a doubt.—Springfield v. The State, 96 Ala. 81; Pate v. The State, 94 Ala. 18; Barnett v. The State, 83 Ala. 45; Williams v. The State, 52 Ala. 413.

¶5There was no error in refusing so give said charge.

¶6Affirmed,

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