Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

19 Ala. App. 598

99 So 751

Johnson v. State

Alabama Court of Appeals

Decided April 8, 1924

Alabama Court of Appeals · decided 1924-04-08

Relies on Carr v. State · Townsend v. State · Jackson v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1924-04-08

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently December 1981

6 state decisions

201924193019401950196019701980decided

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 →

FOSTER, J.

¶1 The appellant was convicted of violating the prohibition law. The prosecution was instituted by affidavit made before a justice of the peace of Morgan county, charging the defendant with selling or disposing of prohibited liquors, and warrant of arrest issued returnable to the Morgan county court. Justices of the peace of Morgan county are without authority to issue warrants of arrest in misdemeanor cases returnable to the Morgan county court. Local Acts 1919, p. 202, § 1; Brown v. State ante, p. 256, 96 South. 726.

¶2 The court gave the following charge, requested in writing by the state:

“I charge you, gentlemen of the jury, that if you believe from the evidence in this case that the defendant is guilty it would be your duty to convict her, although you believe it possible that she is not guilty.”

¶3 This instruction was faulty, in that it required the conviction, although 'the jury may not have believed from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty. Campbell v. State, 170 Ala. 55, 54 South. 107; Townsend v. State, 137 Ala. 91, 34 South. 382; Jackson v. State, 106 Ala. 12, 17 South. 333; Carr v. State, 104 Ala. 4, 10 South. 150.

¶4 It will serve no useful purpose to review the other questions presented. For the error indicated, the judgment of the lower court is reversed, and the cause is remanded.

¶5 Reversed and remanded.

/19/alaapp/598 · .json · Public domain