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151 Ala. 80

Sykes v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided June 13, 1907

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1907-06-13

Heard before Hon. J. C. Kitmpe. Bud Sylces appeals from a conviction of selling whisky without a license and contrary to law. The defendant ivas charged with selling whisky without license and contrary to law, was found guilty, and fined $50, and an additional term was added by the court of three months. The remarks of the solicitor are sufficiently stated in the opinion of the court. The evidence tended to support the charge in the indictment.

Relies on Cross v. State · Miller v. State · Gilmore v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed and remanded · Decided 1907-06-13

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently January 1967

11 state decisions

701907191019201930194019501960decided

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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HARALSON, J.

¶1The argument of the solicitor to the jury Avas improper, and should haAre been excluded on the motion of the defendant. It stated the existence of two substantive facts, unsupported by any1' evidence in the cause, Avhich facts bore on a material inquiry, the tendencies of Avhich Avere, to influence their finding against the defendant. These tAA:o facts were, that “it has come to such a pass in LaAvrence county, that you cannot have a public gathering without whisky being sold there,” and “they sell it at your churches.” There was no semblance of evidence to support these statements, and according tó our uniform rulings on the sub-*82ject, they should have been excluded. — Cross v. State, 68 Ala. 484; Childress v. State, 86 Ala. 86, 5 South. 775.

¶2The fact that the court, in its general charge to the jury, told them that they “must decide the case upon the evidence as detailed by the witnesses on the stand, and that the argument of counsel was intended to elucidate or explain the testimony in the case, and that the jury should not be governed by it any further than to explain the evidence in the case,” did not cure the error, of a refusal to exclude the statement of the existence of these assumed facts. For the purpose of elucidation and explanation, the solicitor had no right to assume the existence of facts, which had no existence, so far as appeared, in the evidence. There was abundant room to explain and elucidate, without resort to such unfounded and prejudicial statements.

¶3There was no error in giving charge for the state, numbered 2. — Miller v. State, 107 Ala. 42, 19 South. 37; Wilkins v. State, 98 Ala. 5, 8 (charges 9 and 10), 13 South. 312; Norris v. State, 87 Ala. 88, 6 South. 371.

¶4A charge which instructs the jury, that before they can convict the defendant, they must believe him guilty beyond a moral certainty, is erroneous.- — Roberson v. State, 99 Ala. 192, 13 South. 532. But it is error to refuse a charge, that the jury must be satisfied from the evidence beyond all reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, of the guilty of the defendant, before they can convict him. — Williams v. State, 52 Ala. 411; Gilmore v. State, 99 Ala. 155, 13 South. 536; Roberson’s Case, supra.

¶5The affirmative charge requested by the defendant was properly refused. — Mitchell v. State, 141 Ala. 90, 37 South. 407.

¶6Reversed and remanded.

Tyson, C. J., and Anderson and Denson, JJ.., concur.
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