20 Ala. 24 | Ala. | 1852
The first question presented by the record arises upon the admissibility of the declarations of the slave, made in the presence and hearing of the prisoner. The record does not inform us of the character of the declarations, and assuming for the present that they were not denied by the prisoner, and that his situation at the time was not such as to render it improper for him to make such denial, the
To reject the evidence in the case under consideration, solely on the 'ground that the party making the declaration was a slave, would be in effect to decide that, under no conceivable circumstances, could a statement made by a slave call for a response from a white man; a proposition in direct opposition to our daily observation and experience,
That the declaration was made by a person whose condition rendered him incompetent as a witness, does not in the slightest degree affect the principle on which evidence of this character rests. If the declaration was made by a slave, and the party affected by it had made by his reply a direct admission of its truth, there could be no doubt of the admissibility of the statement and reply; and in oases of implied admissions, the admission, instead of being made by language, is made by the silence of the party. The circumstances under which the declarations were made, the fact that the slave, before making them, had been taken aside and privately talked to by some of the company, cannot, in our opinion, in the slightest degree affect the question of the admissibility of the evidence, although it might properly have the effect of impairing its force with the jury. In relation to the reply in the affirmative, made by the prisoner to the question asked by some one present, if he did not intend to chastise the slave for making the declarations, we do not think it amounted to a denial of the statement made, and could therefore have no
The language of the charge, as stated in the bill of exceptions, renders it difficult to ascertain with accuracy the precise idea intended to be conveyed to the jury. The evidence, however, which is stated in connection with it, and upon which we must presume it was predicated, tended to prove that the slave had run away in the State of Georgia, and the charge in substance was, that a slave in another State, and belonging to a non-resident, could be the subject of the statutory offence declared by the eighteenth section of chapter 4 of the Penal Code, Clay’s Dig., 419. In our view, the charge would seem to give to that section an extra-territorial operation, and in that aspect it was clearly erroneous.
And if the court intended to instruct the jury that the prisoner, by bringing into this State a slave taken by him in another State under any of the circumstances which would have been a violation of the section of the Penal Code before referred to had the taking been in this State, could be convicted on the indictment against him, we think the charge was also erroneous. The twenty-fifth section of the Penal Code, chapter 4, Clay’s Dig., 420, provides “ that every person, who shall fraudulently or feloniously steal the property of another in any other State or country, and shall bring the same within this State, may be convicted and punished in every such case as if such larceny had been committed in this State; and
It is unnecessary to review the correctness of these decisions upon this point, as we all agree, that whatever may be the form of the indictment required to reach offences under the twenty-fifth section, it can make no difference in the facts necessary to be proved to establish the guilt of the accused under that section. Applying the legal rules of construction to the section last referred to, we entertain no doubt that the words “steal” and “larceny” are there technically used, and that one of the essential ingredients of the offence intended to be created by that section, was the taking of the property in another State, under such circumstances as would constitute larceny in this. Murray v. The State, 18 Ala., 727.
The eighteenth section, however, while it embraces the stealing of slaves within the meaning in which the words “steal” and “larceny ” are used in the twenty-fifth section, also embraces other offences, of the same character it is true, and visited upon conviction with the same punishment, but which differ from that offence, considering it as a technical stealing, in some essential particulars. Thus, to carry or entice away a slave in this State, with the view to enable such slave to reach a State or country where he might enjoy his freedom, would be a violation of the eighteenth section; but if the same act with the same intent was committed in another State, and the slave brought into this, it co.uld not, under the view we have taken, be held as a violation of the twenty-fifth section. As the instructions, in the view in which we have last considered them, may have induced the jury to believe that the term stealing, as used in the twenty-fifth section of the Penal Code, covered all the acts embraced by the eighteenth section, and thus tended to mislead them, it follows that the judgment must be
