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267 Ala. 78

Benefield v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided January 23, 1958

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1958-01-23

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1958-01-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently December 1988

8 state decisions

401958196019701980decided

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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MERRILL, Justice.

¶1Petitioner asserts that “The Court of Appeals erroneously took the position, through inferences drawn from the transcript of the evidence and proceedings had on the motion for new trial, that state’s witness E. A. Walton did, in fact, refresh his memory from materials which he had in his possession while testifying on the witness stand when it affirmatively appears by the transcript of the evidence appearing in the record submitted to the Court of Appeals that the finding of the trial court below was that the witness Walton did not use anything to refresh his recollection.”

¶2Certainly, the Court of Appeals, so found in the following statement:

“Regardless of what memorandum Mr. Walton was using to refresh his memory, we think it should have been exhibited to defense counsel on demand — certainly at the time of Walton’s cross examination.”

¶3This finding of fact is contrary to that made by the trial court as to whether the witness was using the memoranda, but having been made, we will not disturb it on certiorari. 4 Ala.Dig., Certiorari, But, we do disagree with the statement following the quoted portion, supra, which reads:

“Indeed, we deem suspect of using aides-memoir any witness who brings papers or books to the stand.”

¶4It is an every day occurrence that witnesses arm themselves with books of account, notations or other papers in preparation for both direct and cross-examination, but often the material is never required nor used. To say that the witness is to be suspected of using aids to his memory, just because they are in his possession when he takes the stand, is disapproved if this is-the correct interpretation of the quoted statement.

¶5Writ denied.

LAWSON, SIMPSON and GOOD-WYN, JJ., concur.
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