106 Ala. 12 | Ala. | 1894
— Plight, of the accused and that he assumed and was known by a false name at the place to which he fled, Mullin’s Station, Tennessee, were relied on by the State as tending to show guilt. To establish the fact of the assumption by him of a false name, the prosecution was allowed, against his objection, to show by the officer who arrested him at Mullin’s Station that the postmaster at that place and another man told him, the officer, “that defendant went by the name of M. L. Jones, and received letters at the postoffice at Mullin’s Station in the name of M. L. Jones.” This testimony was so clearly the merest hearsay, and the ruling of the court allowing it to go to the jury was so obviously erroneous, that we deem it unnecessary to discuss it.
2. Some witnesses for the defendant having testified that they knew the general character of Steve Johnson,
3. Those parts of the court’s general charge to which exceptions were, reserved when read, as they must be, in connection with all that was said upon the subjects to which they relate, are free from error, if indeed they are not so in and of themselves.
4. Charges 1 and 4 given at the instance of the State were bad in that they authorize the jury tó reach a conclusion of guilt upon their belief of certain facts, though they may not have believed them beyond a reasonable doubt. — Carr v. State, 104 Ala. 4; Rhea v. State, 100 Ala. 119 ; Pierson v. State, 99 Ala. 148.
5. There was a tendency of the evidence to show that the defendant, having had an altercation with Ambrose Harris in a crowded room, -went over to a table, got his pistol and, holding it aloft, passed back and forth through
6. Several of the instructions requested by the defendant and refused were to the effect that if the jury believed that the defendant “was not at fault in bringing on the difficulty with Will Harris,” &c. &c.,he should be acquitted. These charges tended to confuse the jury and mislead them to a disregard of the evidence referred to above as to the defendant’s purpose and efforts in respect of Ambrose which he, upon the evidence, for the, State, carried out and visited upon the person of Will. If Will Harris stood to the defendant in the shoes of Ambrose, and the defendant seeking and provoking a difficulty with Ambrose found and shot Will, believing him to be Ambrose, it would be entirely misleading to confine the inquiry as to fault in provoking or encouraging or seeking a difficulty to what transpired at and immediately preceding the homicide between defendant and deceased, as the charges in uuestion in effect do. More
7. Charge 1 requested by the defendant ignores the inquiry of fault pel non, on his part in the inception of the difficulty, and assumes that retreat would have endangered him.
8. Several of defendant’s charges which were refused are bad in that they leave it to the jury to determine what is self-defense — a question of law for the court.
Some questions other than those covered by the fore-, going opinion are presented by this record ; but the ruling of the court upon them was either correct, or they are such questions as will not arise upon another trial.
Reversed and remanded.