93 So. 471 | Ala. | 1922
Section 4008 of the Code of 1907 provides that no objection can be taken to the competency of a witness because of conviction for crime, except perjury or subornation of perjury, "but if he has been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude, the objection goes to his credibility." This court has several times defined the words "moral turpitude," as used in this provision, as meaning something immoral in itself, regardless of the fact that it is punished by law. It must not merely be mala prohibita, but the act itself must be inherently immoral. The doing of the act itself, and not its prohibition by statute, fixes the moral turpitude. Pippin v. State,
The Court of Appeals concedes that this evidence would have been improper so long as distilling was a misdemeanor, but grounds its present holding upon the fact that it has been made a statutory felony by section 15 of the Prohibition Act of 1919 (Gen. Acts 1919, p. 16), since the rendition of the foregoing decisions and relies on the case of Fuller v. State,
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cause is remanded to said court for further consideration in conformity with this opinion.
Writ awarded; reversed and remanded.
All Justices concur. *567