If any person charged with any felony is held in confinement under indictment and the trial court shall have reasonable ground to doubt his sanity, the trial of such person for such offense shall be suspended until the jury shall inquire into the fact of such sanity, such jury to be impaneled from the regular jurors in attendance for the week or from a special venire, as the court may direct. If the jury shall find the accused sane at the time of its verdict, it shall make no other inquiry, and the trial in chief shall proceed. If it finds that he is insane at that time, the court shall make an order committing him to the Alabama state hospitals, where he must remain until he is restored to his right mind. When the superintendent of the hospitals shall be of opinion that such person is so restored, he shall forthwith, in writing, inform the judge and sheriff of such court of the fact, whereupon such person must be remanded to jail on an order of such judge and the criminal proceedings resumed. In no event shall such a person be set at large so long as such prosecution is pending or so long as he continues to be insane.
Ala. Code § 15-16-21
Suspension of Felony Trial to Inquire into Accused’s Sanity; Proceedings Upon Jury Findings; Resumption of Proceedings When Sanity Restored; Release Restriction.
Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case 402 So. 2d 1130 - Wherry v. State (1981)
Most recently applied in 742 F. Supp. 1535 - Daniel v. Thigpen (July 1990)
(Code 1896, §4941; Code 1907, §7178; Code 1923, §4575; Code 1940, T. 15, §426.)
How often courts cite this section
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.
Official source: Alabama Legislature (ALISON). Reproduced from public-domain Alabama statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.