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132 Ala. 391

Beeson v. Moore

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided February 13, 1902

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1902-02-13

<p> Action for Deceit in Sale of Chattels. </p> <p>1- Competency of witnessj belief in Gocl. — One who believes in God and that “all the punishment a man gets is in this world,” but does not believe in rewards and punishments after death, is a competent witness.</p>

Relies on Blocker v. Burness · Porter v. Cotney

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1902-02-13

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently June 1980

5 state decisions

20190219101920193019401950196019701980decided

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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McCLELLAN, C. J.

¶1— The competency of Beeson, the plaintiff, as a witness was challenged by the defendant. The onus ivas on the defendant to' support his challenge' — to show that Beeson Avas not competent. To this end it was shown that Beeson believed in God but did not believe in reAvards and punishments after death: His belief was “that all the punishment a man gets is in this world.” It will suffice for the disposition of this case to say that under the strictest vieAY of the law on this subject that has ever obtained in Alabama the witness was not shown to be incompetent. He was excluded because he did not believe, in an existence after death and reAvards and punishments- in that existence for the good and evil done in this; and that was error. Blocker v. Burness, 2 Ala. 354; Porter v. Cotney, 3 Ala. 314. We need not declare Avhat our ruling Avould be *392had it been shown that the proposed witness did not believe in divine punishments either in this world or the next.

¶2Reversed and remanded.

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