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34 Ala. 253

Hudson v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided June 15, 1859

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1859-06-15

Tried before the Hon. Eobert Dou&herty. The indictment in this case was found at the March term of said circuit court, 1859, and contained two counts) the first charging, that the defendants, Elisha Hudson and Thomas C. Carlisle, “ unlawfully-, aud with malice aforethought, killed a negro man slave, named Gus, the property of one William Fuller, by shooting him with a gun;” and the second, that said defendants, “ with malice aforethought, caused the death of a negro man…

Relies on Henry v. State · Eskridge v. State · Dave v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1859-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently November 1898

7 state decisions

3018591860187018801890decided

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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STONE, J.

¶1We deemit unnecessary to inquire whether the second count in the indictment is or is not good. *254The first seems unexceptionable; the finding is a general one ; and in such case, the rule is, to refer the finding to the good count. — Shaw v. The State, 18 Ala. 547; State v. Coleman, 5 Por. 32.

¶2[2.] The indictment was for murder, and the conviction for manslaughter in the second degree. The person slain was a slave. It is contended, that we have no such offense as manslaughter in the second degree, when a slave is the subject of the homicide. ¥c can not assent to this proposition. We hold, that when a slave is unlawfully deprived of life, he is, under our laws, a reasonable creature in being, in whose homicide either a white person or a slave may commit the crime of murder or manslaughter. — State v. Coleman, supra; Flanegan’s case, 5 Ala. 477; State v. Jones, ib. 666 ; The State v. Abram, 10 Ala. 928; Seaborn v. The State, 20 Ala. 15; Dave v. The State, 22 Ala. 23; Carpenter v. The State, 23 Ala. 84; Eskridge v. The State, 25 Ala. 30; Bob v. The State, 29 Ala. 20; Oxford v. The State, 33 Ala. 416.

¶3Under an indictment for murder, a prisoner may be convicted of manslaughter. — Code, §§ 3504, 3601; Bob v. The State, 29 Ala. 20; Henry v. The State, 33 Ala. 389.

¶4The record is free from error, and the judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.

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