Simmons v. State

Decided May 18, 1916

Alabama Court of Appeals · decided 1916-05-18

<p>Violating Prohibition Law.</p> <p>Trial; Argument of Counsel. — The statement of a solicitor in argument, “You must deal with a negro in the light of the fact that he is a negro, etc.,” was improper and calculated to prejudice the defendant before the jury.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The fact that the defendant was of the negro race did not deprive him of the equal protection of the law, or necessarily discredit his testimony, and should not have been used in the argument as a means of arraying the prejudices of the jury against Mm.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including 17 Ala. App. 500 - Perdue v. State

“You must deal with a Negro in the light of the fact that he is a Negro, and applying your experience and common sense”

quoted by 1 later decision, including United States of America Ex Rel. James C. Haynes v. Charles L. McKendrick Warden, Wallkill State Prison, Walkill, New York

Relies on Tannehill v. State · James v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed and remanded · Decided 1916-05-18

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently April 1996

1 federal appellate · 11 state decisions

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

BROWN, J.

¶1The statement of the solicitor, “You must deal with a negro in the light of the fact that he is a negro, and applying your experience and common sense,” was improper and calculated to prejudice the defendant before the jury, and the defendant’s objection thereto should have been sustained.— James v. State, 170 Ala. 72, 54 South. 494; Tannehill v. State, 159 Ala. 51, 48 South. 662. The fact that the defendant was of the negro race did not deprive him of the equal protection of the law, or necessarily discredit his testimony, and should not have been used in the argument as a means of arraying the prejudices of the jury against him.

¶2For this error the judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded.

¶3Reversed and remanded.