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137 Ala. 91

Townsend v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1902

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1902-11-15

Tried before tbe Hon. M. B. Abercrombie. Tbe facts of tbe case are sufficiently stated in tbe opinion. There was a fatal variance betunen tbe allegations of tbe complaint or affidavit upon which the defendant in this case, was tried, and tbe. proof, and for that reason tbe defendant was wrongfully convicted. — McOehee v. State, 58 Ala. 360; Elliott v. State, 26 Ala. 78.

Relies on Pierson v. State · Carr v. State · Elliott v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1902-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently October 1958

12 state decisions

40190219101920193019401950decided

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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TYSON, J.

¶1It is true there is no conflict in the evidence as to the guilt of the defendant, but the credibility of the witnesses was matter for determination by the jury. It was, therefore, error for the court at the written request of the solicitor to instruct the jury that if they believe the evidence, that they must find the defendant guilty. This instruction, required his conviction though the jury may not have believed the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. — Jackson v. The State, 106 Ala. 12; Carr v. The State, 104 Ala. 4; Shields v. The State, Ib. 35; Harris v. The State, 100 Ala. 129; Pierson v. The State, 99 Ala. 148; Heath v. The State, Ib. 179. A charge in exactly the same language as tliis one was held proper in Jones v. The State, 96 Ala. 56. But the court in considering it evidently overlooked the infirmity we have pointed out and 'which, in the later decisions cited above, was held to render it had and the giving of it to he1 reversible error.

¶2The affidavit upon which this defendant was tried and convicted charged that he and nine other persons therein named played at a. game with cards or dice, or some device or substitute for cards or dice in a highway or some other public place.

¶3■The evidence undisputedly showed that Ovo of the persons named did not play in the same game with this *93defendant, but played in another game at the same place and at the same time. This fact clearly brings the case within the principle that was allowed to control in Elliott v. The State, 26 Ala. 78, and McGhee v. The State, 58 Ala. 360. Bee also Johnson v. The State, 44 Ala. 414; Cox v. The State, 76 Ala. 66; Lindsey v. The State, 48 Ala. 169.

¶4This defendant and those playing in the game with him should have been proceeded against separate and apart from the others wlio played in a different game, or the prosecution should have been against each separately.

¶5Reversed and remanded.

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