Key v. StateKey v. State
In view of the extended opinion of the Court of Appeals in this case our former opinion is of no material value here. Maston Key v. State, post, p.-,
As disclosed by the opinion of the Court of Aрpeals the conviction was for robbery: one of the victims'from whose possession the property was taken being George Lewis. Lewis identified defendant Maston Key as the party who (omitting unessеntial details) came to his garage in Cuba, Alabama, held him up at the point of a pistol, and forсed from him possession of the two slot machines, the stolen property.
The defense was an аlibi. Lewis made positive identification • of the defendant as the guilty party, while defendant and his witnesses testified to facts tending to show it was physically impossible that he could have been connectеd with the crime. Lewis testified that sometime after the robbery, he was in Meridian, Mississippi, and saw this defendant. Identification of the defendant as the guilty party was the principal, if not indeed the sole, controverted issue in the case, and the relevancy and admissibility of this evidence does not appеar to have been questioned. Beavers v. State,
The reversal of the judgment of conviction by the Court of Appeals is rested solely upon the fact that the trial court, over defendant’s objection, permitted the State’s witness Tom Upchurch to testify that he was with Lewis on the occasion in Meridian when Lewis saw defendant, and that the mаn Lewis saw was this defendant. The opinion of the Court of Appeals rests this conclusion upon Shambеrger v. State,
The authorities cited in brief for defendant, which we have carefully examined (Byrd v. State,
The witness Lewis is not offеring to show he made a statement to others similar to that he now testifies, or is otherwise attempting tо bolster up his testimony by proof of anything he did. The State merely offers a witness who was with Lewis at the time, and who testifies to a fact, that is, that the man Lewis saw was this defendant. That-was an independent fact to which the witness Upchurch could testify just as to any other fact. True, it serves the purpose of corroborating Lewis to that extent, but this the State had a right to do. 70 Corpus Juris 1179. The reasoning of this Court in Green v. State,
“Mr. Steve Smith was then put upon the stand, and, against the objection of the defendant, testified .that the witnеss Henry Green had shown him the place. This is the full extent of the testimony of Mr. Steve Smith. If Mr. Smith had been examined as to facts, — that he saw a place' which indicated that some one had been buried there оr exhumed, or marks of a *21 struggle, or any signs or evidence tending to show a murder had been committed,— this would hаve been legal evidence, and it was entirely competent for him to have stated that the witnеss Green had pointed out to him the spot where these indications were to be seen. It served to identify the spot as the same one testified to by the witness Green. The statement that the witness Green had shown it to him then would not be evidence for any purpose other than to identify it as being the same place in regard to which he had testified. So far, then, as the facts testified to by the witness Smith agreed with Green, the latter would be corroborated. But a witness cannot corroborate himself by introducing оther witnesses to prove that he made the same statement to them to which he deposed, оr that he showed other witnesses a spot in regard to which he had testified.”
So in the instant case Upchurch testified to a fact, that is, the identification of the defendant as the man Bewis saw in Meridian. Such рroof comes well within the reasoning of the Court in the Green case, above reproduced. The case of Treadwell v. State,
We are therefore of the conclusion that error to reversе was not committed by the trial court in respect to the ruling on the evidence as herein indicatеd, and that the holding of the Court of Appeals to the contrary is erroneous. The writ is awarded, the judgment of the Court of Appeals reversed and the cause remanded to that court for further proceedings in accordance with the views herein expressed.
Writ awarded. Reversed and remanded.