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25 Ala. App. 297

145 So 504

Smith v. State

Alabama Court of Appeals

Decided January 10, 1933

Alabama Court of Appeals · decided 1933-01-10

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The rule, as we understand it, is that intoxication less than mania does not exclude a confession made during its continuance; if claimed and proved, it only goes to the weight and credibility to be accorded by the jury to the said confession. * * * ””

quoted by 1 later decision, including 39 Ala. App. 257 - Ray v. State

Relies on Bell v. United States · Mose v. State · Eskridge v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1933-01-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 50 later decisions — most recently April 1989 · most notably Dennison v. State (1953), 47 Ala. App. 677 - Bedingfield v. State (1972)

50 state decisions

200193319401950196019701980decided

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 →

RICE, J.

¶1 Appellant was convicted, generally, under an indictment consisting of two counts, one charging the offense of burglary, and the other grand larceny.

¶2 There was ample evidence tending to prove the corpus delicti.

¶3 Other than the evidence which we have held to be sufficient to establish the corpus delicti, the only other testimony in the case, upon which the verdict of conviction was returned, was that of a confession by appellant.

¶4 The rule as to the admission of testimony as to confessions is too well known to need repetition here. Suffice to say that it was not violated in the instant case.

¶5 Appellant’s single contention was, and is. that the testimony as to his alleged confession was inadmissible because he was drunk or intoxicated at the time it was alleged to have been made. But the testimony on this point was conflicting.

¶6 The rule, as we understand it, is that intoxication less than mania does not exclude a confession made during its continuance; if claimed and proved, it only goes to the weight and credibility to be accorded by the jury to the said confession. See 16 C. J. 729; Eskridge v. State, 25 Ala. 30; and Bell v. United States, 60 App. D. C. 76, 47 F.(2d) 438, 74 A. L. R. 1098.

¶7 “The corpus delicti being otherwise established, a conviction may be had on the prisoner’s confession alone, if free, voluntary, and satisfactorily proved.” Mose v. State, 36 Ala. 211.

¶8 The case seems to have been tried in all re- ' spects according to the applicable rules of law. We discover nowhere a prejudicially ' erroneous ruling, and the judgment of conviction is affirmed.

¶9 Affirmed.

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