Mayes v. StateMayes v. State
Louie Mayes, a purchasing agent for the Alabama State Docks, was charged by indictment with twenty-one counts of first degreе theft [Alabama Code 1975, § 13A-8-3] and one count of violating Alabama’s Code of Ethics fоr Public Officials and Employees [§ 36-25-5]. A jury convicted him of all twenty-two counts. Sentencе was fifteen years’ imprisonment and restitution in the amount of $19,004.66.
The only issue raised on аppeal concerns the trial judgе’s refusal to give the defendant’s requestеd charge No. 5, which states:
“The Court charges the Jury that there should not be a conviction upon the evidence unless to a moral certainty it excludes every other reasonable hypothesis thаn that of the guilt of the accused. No mаtter how strong may be the facts, if they cаn be reconciled with the theory that some other person may have done the acts, then the guilt of the accused is not shown by that full measure of proof whiсh the law requires.”
This refusal was proper.
The defendant’s requestеd charge No. 5 was properly excluded because it “fails to hypothesize a reasonable theory that some other person may have done the act charged to defendant.” Owens v. State,
“Charge 1 requested by defendant appears to have been copied from thе opinion rendered in Ex parte Aeree,63 Ala. 234 . The case is not authority for charging the jury in the language used. As an instruction to thе jury, it is calculated to mislead them to аcquit upon any theory that another mаy have committed the act, howevеr abstract, speculative, or unreаsonable the theory, so that it be reconcilable with the evidence, which thеy were not authorized to do.” Turner v. State,124 Ala. 59 ,27 So. 272 , 275 (1900).
See also Parham v. State,
“Statements of law in judicial opinions are not always proper for jury instructions in other сases. ... Lifting language from an opinion and embodying it in a written charge does not of itself make it a correct instruction to the jury_ Much is properly said in the opiniоns of appellate courts which is not proper to be given in charge to juries.” Knight v. State,
The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.