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136 Ala. 80

Holmes v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1902

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1902-11-15

Tried before the Hon. A. H. Alston. The appellant in this case, Arthur Holmes,' was indicted and tried for an assault with intent to murder Annie Love, was convicted of an assault with a pistol, and fined one hundred dollars. On tbe trial of the case the State introduced as a witness Annie Love, the person assaulted, and her testimony-tended to shoiv that the defendant intentionally and deliberately shot at her with a pistol.

Relies on Johnson v. State · Lewis v. State · Harrison v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1902-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently May 1942

13 state decisions

5019021910192019301940decided

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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SHARPE, J. —

¶1-Defendant was convicted of an assault on Annie Love, a woman, with a pistol. The woman was shot and her testimony tended to show defendant shot her intentionally. Defendant testified the shooting was accidental. He testified that when it occurred he started to Mr. Latham to get him to go for a doctor. He was asked by his counsel if he told Mr. Latham about the accident and an objection to the question was sustained. The ruling was right, being in conformity with the familiar rule which denies to a party the right to make evidence for himself of his own mere declarations. Defendant was asked by his counsel, “How did you hap*84pen to have the pistol on that occasion, and what were you going to do with it?” An objection to this question was sustained and properly so, because the question called for an unconimunicated purpose or intention, the proper proof of which lay in inference from the circumstances in evidence, and not in the direct statement of the witness. Brown v. State, 79 Ala. 51; Lewis v. State, 96 Ala. 6; Johnson v. State, 102 Ala. 1; Harrison v. State, 78 Ala. 5.

¶2Latham as a witness was not allowed to answer .defendant’s question “Do you know why Arthur Holmes had a pistol at the time of the shooting?” An. answer to the question would have involved a conclusion, inad: missible as evidence.

¶3After giving charges 1 to 4, inclusive, the court said to the jury: “I give you these charges in connection with my general charge, and this all means that you cannot convict this defendant until you are satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt of his guilt.” We are of the opinion that this did not amount to a qualification of the written charges within the implied prohibition of section 3228 of the Code. What was said apparently had reference to the oral as well as written instructions. It purported to state a general proposition as resulting from the sev: eral minor propositions asserted in the oral and written charges, without detracting from or limiting the meaning of the latter.

¶4Refused charges 5 and 6 were each faulty in purport’ ing to authorize an acquittal upon considerations which might have arisen from a part of the evidence only, whereas it was the duty of the jury to consider and to act upon the evidence as a whole.

¶5Charge 7 had an undue tendency to promote adherence by each juror to his individual and possibly erroneous conviction, and thereby to prevent an agreement upon a proper verdict.

¶6There was in the testimony, and even in the testimony other than that given by Annie Love, evidence upon which the jury could have founded a conviction, hence charges' 8 and C were properly refused. Charge B is argumentative. ■ ■ -

¶7■ No reversible error appearing in the record, the judgment will be affirmed.

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