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156 Ala. 44

McBryde v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided July 3, 1908

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1908-07-03

Heard before Hon. C. P. Almon. Joel McBryde was convicted of murder in tbe second degree, and he appeals. It was shown on the trial that the juror Blackwell was named “J. P. Blackwell,” and not “J. C. Blackwell,” as his name appeared in the Jury box; but it was ascertained that there was no other person named “Blackwell” in the beat in which he lived.

Relies on Crawford v. State · Gibson v. State · Evans v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed and remanded · Decided 1908-07-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently March 1973 · most notably Chaney v. State (1912), 19 Ala. App. 432 - Baker v. State (1923)

25 state decisions

8019081910192019301940195019601970decided

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 →

SIMPSON, J.

¶1The appellant in this case was convicted for the crime of murder in the second degree. There was no error in overruling the defendant’s objection to the juror Blackwell, because of the mistake in the middle initial of his name. Kimbrell v. State, 130 Ala. 40, 30 South. 454; Martin v. State, 144 Ala. 8, 40 South. 275.

¶2The court erred in not sustaining the objections to the testimony of the witness C. C. Isbell, and to the question by the solictor to him and the answer thereto, as the testimony sought and given was hearsay.

¶3There was no error in permitting the witness Murry to testify that he saw only a little rock, nor in overruling the objection to the question by the solicitor, “Were there any rocks about the place?” The witnesses had testified to the throwing of a rock by the deceased, and it was relevant to show whether or not there were any rocks about the place.

¶4There was no error in the oral charge given by the court. Reese v. State, 135 Ala. 13, 33 South. 672; Skipper v. State, 144 Ala. 100, 42 South. 43; Jackson v. State, 77 Ala. 18.

¶5There was no error in the refusal of the court to give charge No. 1, requested by defendant. The inability to safely retreat, and; other elements of self-defense, must be proved by the defendant, before the burden is placed upon the state to prove that the defendant was the aggressor. Gibson v. State, 89 Ala. 121, 8 South. *5698, 18 Am. St. Rep. 96; Cleveland v. State, 86 Ala. 1, 5 South. 426; Stitt v. State, 91 Ala. 10, 8 South. 669, 24 Am. St. Rep. 858; Sprigfield v. State, 96 Ala. 81, 11 South. 250, 38 Am. St. Rep. 85; Webb v. State, 100 Ala. 48, 14 South. 865; Holmes v. State, 100 Ala. 80, 14 South. 864; Sullivan v. State, 102 Ala. 136, 15 South. 264, 48 Am. St. Rep. 22; Etheridge v. State, 141 Ala. 29, 37 South. 337.

¶6Charge No. 2, requested by the defendant, while otherwise defective, fails to hypothesize the imminency of the peril. — Mitchell v. State, 133 Ala. 66, 72, 32 South. 132; Evans v. State, 109 Ala. 12, 22, 19 South. 535.

¶7Charge No. 3, requested by the defendant, besides being argumentative, does not hypothesize a sufficient provocation. — Holmes v. State, 88 Ala. 26, 7 South. 193, 16 Am. St. Rep. 17.

¶8Charge No. 4, requested by the defendant, was properly refused. Besides being argumentative, the fact that a man of ordinary self-control might not have resented the provocation would not change the fact that the defendant actually did provoke the difficulty.

¶9Charge No. 5, requested by the defendant, asserts a correct proposition of law, and should have been given.

¶10Charge No. 6, requested by the defendant, was properly refused. The defendant must be free from fault— not reasonably free — in order to invoke the doctrine of self-defense. — Crawford’s Case, 112 Ala. 5, 29, 21 South. 214.

¶11Charge No. 7 was properly refused. It was involved and confusing.

¶12Charge No. 8 was properly refused. Besides being argumentative, the fact that the deceased does not exercise proper self-control does not make him the aggressor in the fight.

¶13*57Charge 'No. 9 did not sufficiently hypothesize ¡the serious nature of the bodily'harm which was threatened or apprehended, and was properly refused.

¶14• Charge No. 10’ was abstract as to manslaughter in the second degree, and was properly refused.

¶15Charge No. 11 was properly refused. — -Crawford v. State, 112 Ala, 5, 12, 33, 21 South. 214.

¶16Charge No. 12 asserts a correect legal proposition, and should have been given. Smith v. State, 86 Ala. 28, 5 South. 478.

¶17Charges Nos. 12% and 17 were properly ¡refused. It is not necessary, in order to make the defendant the aggressor in bringing on the difficulty, that he said or did anything that would justify resentment by the deceased. He must be entirely free from fault in bringing on the difficulty, in order to be allowed to claim self-defense. “An inquiry, no matter how far from angry or irritating in tone its expression may be, in its very nature and surroundings, is calculated to provoke a difficulty.” — Jackson v. State, 81 Ala. 33, 35, 1 South. 33.

¶18Charge 13 is elliptical, and was properly refused.

¶19There was no error in the refusal to give charges Nos. 14 and 16. They ignored the possibility of the jury’s finding the defendant guilty of some loAver grade of offense than that “charged in the indictment.”

¶20The court could not be placed in error for refusing to give charge No. 15, as it is unintelligible, in stating that the. “right to strike in self-defense revised.”

¶21Charge No. 18, besides being elliptical, in omitting the word “is” before “imminent,” does not sufficiently hypothesize the serious nature of the danger to his person.

¶22The judgment of the court is reversed, and the cause remanded.

*58Tyson, C. J., and Haralson, Dowdell, Anderson, and Denson, JJ., concur, except as to the'refusal to give charge 5, as to- which Tyson, C. J., and Denson, J., dissent, holding that said charge is calculated to mislead the jury.
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