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130 Ala. 95

Smith v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1900

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1900-11-15

Tried before the Hon. James W. Lapsley. The appellant, Richard Smith, was indicted for murder in the second degree, in killing Edward Bird, was convicted of manslaughter in the second degree, and sentenced to hard labor for the county for twelve months. The indictment, by separate counts, charged that the defendant killed Edward Bird by hitting him with a rock and by hitting him with a brick.

Relies on Miller v. State · Alston v. State · Wesson v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1900-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently October 1953

14 state decisions

50190019101920193019401950decided

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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MoCLELLAN, C. J.

¶1The bill of exceptions states that defendant “asked the court to give the following charges:” Then follow six charges. And then this further statement of the hill of exceptions: “The court refused to give the above written charges, and the defendant duly and legally excepted to the refusal to give said charges.” There is no assignment of errors. Hence the ruling, or rulings, of the court upon the request for instructions is not brought within the influence of section 613 of the Code. Apart from that section the exception reserved was a general one to the court’s refusal to give six charges. Unless all of them should have been given, it cannot be affirmed that the court was in error.Alston v. State, 109 Ala. 51, 54; Wesson v. State, 109 Ala. 61, 64. Some of them were clearly bad. Thus charge 1 refers a question of law to the jury.Miller v. State, 107 Ala. 40. Charge 3 requires an acquittal for the absence of malice though the indictment embraced offenses of which malice is not a constituent, and the jury had a right on the evidence to convict of one of such offenses;and charges 5 and 6 are open to the same objection. We need not consider whether these charges have other faults, or whether other charges correctly declare the law. The case presents no other question, and the judgment must be affirmed.

¶2Affinned.

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