106 Ala. 52 | Ala. | 1894
— The point raised by the appellant as to the sufficiency and validity of the judgment entry and sentence in the court below has been adjudged against his contention in the case of Wilkinson v. State, ante, p. 23.
The defendant requested the following charge : “I charge you, that every one charged with the commission of an offense against the law is presumed to be innocent until his guilt is established, and the evidence sufficient to convict should not be a mere preponderance of probabilities; but should be so convincing as to lead the mind to the conclusion that the accused can not be guiltless, and if upon the whole evidence the guilt of the defendant is not established to a moral certainty the jury must find him not guilty.” A charge in this language was-refused to the defendant in the case of Murphy v. State, 6 Ala. 845, and again in the case of Coleman v. State, 59 Ala. 52 ; and in each of these cases the charge was held to be good and the action of the court, refusing to give it to the jury, erroneous. In Mose v. State, 36 Ala. 211, the trial court refused the following charge requested by the defendant: “That unless the evidence against the prisoner should be such as to exclude to a moral certainty every hypothesis but that of his guilt of the offense imputed to him, they must find him not guilty ;” and it was held on appeal that this instruction wms a correct statement of the law and should have been given. Speaking of this charge and the one under consideration taken from the cases of Murphy and Coleman, supra, it was said in the latter case : “These two statements of one and •the same principle have stood as guides, and without
'The charge we have here is open to precisely the same objection. It requires of the jury, before a conviction can be had, belief beyond a reasonable doubt, not only that the defendant committed the offense charged, but further that he cannot be innocent of the offense, which is to say that it-is not possible for him to have committed the crime. This is a degree of certaint}'' which is beyond attainment on human testimony, and which the law'does not require. This-charge w'as condemned as
This charge was refused to the defendant; “It is not eveiy or any possession of stolen goods 1)3’ a defendant which will authorize the inference of his complicity’ in the crime of larceny, nor, in fact, every such unexplained possession.” It will suffice to say of this charge that it may well be understood to mean that no possession of stolen goods will authorize the inference of guilt even in the absence, of explanation, which, of course, is not the law, and to have given it here would have been especialty injurious because the defendant’s recent possession of the property stolen was clearly shown.
The last charge refused to the defendant — “Good character is admissible in this case to generate a reasonable doubt” — was bad on considerations adverted above.
Affirmed.