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244 Ala. 637

15 So.2d 303

Lovejoy v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided October 7, 1943

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1943-10-07

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“"In particular, we hold that, as a rule, the mere admission of evidence of the number of children left by deceased, or their ages, without more, should not work a reversal in a homicide case. The Fisher case, Fisher v. State , 23 Ala. App. 544 , 129 So. 303 , quoted and followed in the opinion in the instant case, seems to call for a reversal for error in admitting evidence merely of the number and ages of the children of deceased. We think the opinion goes too far in that regard. But the evidence here went much further. Says the Court of Appeals: 'But the admission of the testimony as to the number of children left by deceased; of their partial abandonment by his widow acting in supposed concert with Johnny Lovejoy; their predicament, treatment, and manner of being cared for by relatives, cannot be justified on any ground that occurs, or has been suggested, to us. Much testimony along this line was brought out by the State, all over appellant's objections, with due exceptions reserved. It seems unnecessary to specify it more particularly, here.' "In permitting this wide line of evidence calculated to inflame the jury, while shedding no light on the homicide, presented such a state of the case that we cannot say the Court of Appeals was in error in reversing the cause."”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Johnson v. State, 630 So. 2d 120 - Crymes v. State

Relies on 23 Ala. App. 544 - Fisher v. State · 23 Ala. App. 581 - Chessire v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1943-10-07

How this case has been cited

Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently May 2014

20 state decisions

10019431950196019701980199020002010decided

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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BOULDIN, Justice.

¶1 We would not be understood as concurring in all that is said by the Court of Appeals on the question raised by the petition for certiorari. In particular, we hold that, as a rule, the mere admission of evidence of the number of children left by deceased, or their ages, without more, should not work a reversal in a homicide case. The Fisher case, Fisher v. State, 23 Ala.App. 544, 129 So. 303, quoted and followed in the opinion in the instant case, seems to call for a reversal for error in admitting evidence merely of the number and ages of the children of deceased. We think the opinion goes too far in that regard. But the evidence here went much further. Says the Court of Appeals: “But the admission of the testimony as to. the number of children left by deceased; of their partial abandonment by his widow acting in supposed concert with Johnnie Lovejoy; their predicament, treatment, and manner of being cared for by relatives,, cannot be justified on any ground that occurs, or has been suggested, to us. Much testimony along this line was brought out by the State, all over appellant’s objections, with due exceptions reserved. It seems unnecessary to specify it more particularly, here.”

¶2*638 In permitting this wide line of evidence calculated to inflame the jury, while shedding no light on the homicide, presented such a state of the case that we cannot say the Court of Appeals was in error in reversing the cause.

¶3 Writ denied.

All the Justices concur.
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