291 Ala. 352 - Buckles v. State

How this case has been cited

Cited by 44 later decisions — most recently July 1991 · most notably 51 Ala. App. 589 - Character v. State (1973), Buckles v. State (1973)

44 state decisions

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.

BLOODWORTH, Justice

¶1(dissenting):

¶2I most respectfully dissent. I would affirm the Court of Criminal Appeals, being of the opinion its decision is correct.

¶3The clear effect of the oral charge in this case is to place upon defendant the burden of explaining his possession of recently stolen goods — thus of proving his innocence. The burden of proof is on the State to prove defendant’s guilt.

¶4As pointed out in the exhaustive opinion of Mr. Justice McCall, the older cases of our court, as well as those of the Court of Appeals, have indicated defendant had such burden. Clearly, however, modern authority is to the contrary.

¶5Almost identical charges were condemned by the Court of Criminal Appeals in Haynes v. State, 45 Ala.App. 31, 222 So.2d 183 (1969), and in Reed v. State, 47 Ala.App. 617, 259 So.2d 304 (1972). I think these decisions are correct.

¶6A charge to effect that the unexplained provision of recently stolen property is a circumstance from which the jury may infer that the defendant is guilty of *359stealing it, was recently upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeals in Chadwick v. State, 47 Ala.App. 529, 258 So.2d 62 (1972). Judge Cates in concurring with Judge Tyson’s opinion for the Court of Criminal Appeals suggests what is, in my judgment, a proper charge. It does not directly'place a burden on defendant, which I consider to be the vice in the charge in the instant case.

HEFLIN, C. J., and COLEMAN, J., concur.