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25 Ala. App. 334

145 So 583

Wallace v. State

Alabama Court of Appeals

Decided February 14, 1933

Alabama Court of Appeals · decided 1933-02-14

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“"A state's witness was allowed to testify, over due objection, etc., that, as they were taking appellant to jail, he asked the officers 'if he could take a sentence and go on and put up his time, or would he have to stay in jail and put up bond.'”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 608 So. 2d 439 - Hereford v. State

“"The admission of the testimony last referred to — the question to the officers — was, of course, error. Mathews v. State , 21 Ala. App. 173 , 106 So. 206 [(1925)]."”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 608 So. 2d 439 - Hereford v. State

Relies on Riddle v. State · 21 Ala. App. 173 - Mathews v. State · 21 Ala. App. 173 - Stewart v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1933-02-14

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently September 1992

7 state decisions

301933194019501960197019801990decided

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, Judge.

¶1 Briefly, some officers, crawling through the weeds, “flushed a covey” (we’ll call ’em that) of men and boys from around a still, set up, in operation, and producing whisky. No officer claimed to have seen any one doing anything with, to, or about or concerning, said still. Everybody “broke and ran” ; and this appellant, a young man, with a companion, a mere boy, was overhauled, so to speak, some distance away from the still. The “companion” referred to began to cry. Whereupon, as the state’s witnesses were allowed to testify, over due objection, etc., appellant remonstrated with him in this wise: “Hush crying there is no use crying, they have caught us and there is no use to cry, just a year and a day,” or words to that effect.

¶2 A state’s witness was allowed to testify, over due objection, etc., that, as they were taking appellant to jail, he asked the officers “if he could take a sentence and go on and put up his time, or would he have to stay in jail and put up bond.”

¶3 Other than what we have detailed herein above, there was nothing upon which to rest the verdict of the jury in this case.

¶4 The admission of the testimony last referred to — -the question to the officers — was, of course, error. Mathews v. State, 21 Ala. App. 173, 106 So. 206.

¶5 The admission of the other testimony referred to, i. e. the “remonstrance” of appel *335 lant to liis “companion,” if it could be justified under the doctrine of res gestee, etc., still afforded nothing upon which to rest a conviction ; it being now axiomatic that mere presence at a still, etc., is no evidence of guilt, etc. The said “remonstrance” was not a “confession, etc.” Underhill’s Criminal Evidence (3d Ed.) p. 303, § 215; Gilbert v. State, ante, p. 160, 142 So. 682.

¶6 There being no legal evidence to sustain the verdict of the jury, etc., it was error to overrule appellant’s motion to set same aside, etc.

¶7 The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded.

¶8 Reversed and remanded.

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