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155 Ala. 9

Watson v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided April 9, 1908

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1908-04-09

Murder. Appeal from Gadsden City Court. Heard before Hon. Alto V. Lee. Daniel Mack Watson was indicted for the killing of Charles Ellenburg by shooting him with a pistol, was convicted of murder in the second degree, and was sentenced to the penitentiary for 20 years. From this judgment, he appeals. During the examination of the witness Ashford counsel for defendant asked if he was not then under indictment for assault with intent to murder.

Relies on Ross v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1908-04-09

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently March 1979

8 state decisions

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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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DOWDELL, J.

¶1The objection by the solicitor to the question asked the witness Ashley by the defendant, if he had not been indicted for an assault with intent to murder, was properly sustained. Ross v. State, 139 Ala. 144, 36 South. 718. The remarks made by the court to the counsel for the defendant in connection with its ruling on this question were unobjectionable, and free from any prejudicial injury to the defendant. Moreover, the court instructed the jury that his remarks to counsel should not be considered by the jury.

¶2The identification of the rock, offered in evidence by the state, was, under the evidence, a question for the jury. The court, however, limited its introduction in evidence as a matter of comparison to the rock taken from the deceased’s pocket, as the witness testified that it looked like the same rock and was about the same size. There was no error in this ruling prejudicial to the defendant.

¶3The defendant having offered impeaching evidence as to the state’s witness, Minnie Ellenburg, on a predicate laid for that purpose, it was competent for the state to introduce evidence of the witness’ good character for truth and veracity for the purpose of sustaining her.

¶4*14The remarks of counsel to the jury as to the defendant’s being forced to trial were properly arrested by the court. This was a question with which the jury had nothing to do, and it was altogether improper as an argument to the jury.

¶5The court committed no error in limiting the number of arguments by counsel for the defendant to. the jury to two. The state had but two. It was a question within the court’s discretion whether it would allow more or not.

¶6The several written charges given at the request of the state are free from any reversible error.

¶7We find no reversible error in the record, and the judgment appealed from must be affirmed.

¶8Affirmed.

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