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44 Ala. App. 112

203 So.2d 294

Rorex v. State

Alabama Court of Appeals

Decided October 17, 1967

Alabama Court of Appeals · decided 1967-10-17

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[t]here can be no trial on the merits in a criminal case until the defendant has pleaded not guilty, or this plea has been entered for him by the court.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 954 So. 2d 1127 - Lawson v. State

Relies on 37 Ala. App. 57 - Huddleston v. State · Howard v. State · Jackson v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1967-10-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently December 2007

22 state decisions

10019671970198019902000decided

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 →

JOHNSON, Judge.

¶1 We have carefully examined the record in this cause and the same reflects that there was no arraignment of the appellant and, therefore, no plea to this charge was entered by him or for him. Consequently, the “adjudication of guilt” by the lower court is without legal force or effect.

¶2 Presiding Judge Bricken, speaking for this court in Chesnut v. State, 35 Ala. App. 376, 47 So.2d 248, stated in part as follows:

“There can be no trial on the merits in a criminal case until the defendant has pleaded not guilty, or this plea has been entered for him by the court; Jackson v. State, 91 Ala. 55, 8 So. 773, 24 Am.St. Rep. 860; Howard v. State, 165 Ala. 18, 50 So. 954; Bowen v. State, 98 Ala. 83, 12 So. 808; Childs v. State, 97 Ala. 49,12 So. 441.”

¶3 See also Huddleston v. State, 37 Ala.App. 57, 64 So.2d 90.

¶4 In view of the need for remandment we also point to the fact that the instant transcript of evidence fails to show a prima facie case of the appellant’s guilt under the statute in such case made and provided.

¶5 Reversed and remanded.

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