Incompetent Witnesses.
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case 414 So. 2d 1014 - Jackson v. State (1982)
Most recently applied in 443 So. 2d 1355 - Coleman v. State (November 1983)
(Code 1907, §§4013, 4014; Code 1923, §§7727, 7728; Code 1940, T. 7, §§439, 440.)
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Persons who have not the use of reason, such as idiots, lunatics during lunacy and children who do not understand the nature of an oath, are incompetent witnesses.
(b) The court must, by examination, decide upon the capacity of one alleged to be incompetent from idiocy, lunacy, insanity, drunkenness or infancy.
Official source: Alabama Legislature (ALISON). Reproduced from public-domain Alabama statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.