Opinion
6 Div. 465.
May 9, 1933.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Winston County; R. L. Blanton, Judge.
Will, alias J. W. Everett was convicted of operating a motor vehicle without a license tag, and he appeals.
Reversed and remanded.
The complaint charged the defendant with having operated a motor vehicle or truck upon the public highways or roads of Winston county without having first obtained a license tag therefor as required by law.
It was admitted by defendant that no license tag was purchased for the truck in question for the years 1931 and 1932. Evidence for the state tended to show that defendant, and persons in his employ at a sawmill operated by defendant, were seen operating an old model T Ford truck on the highways during the period between June and October or November, 1931, and that it had no license tag on it.
Defendant's evidence was to the effect that after 1926, when the last tag was procured for it, the truck was junked, but about the year 1931 defendant gave the truck to his son who fixed it up and used it to haul wood about the place; that defendant had never operated the truck on the highway and no one else had to his knowledge; and that he had not given permission to any one else to operate it on the highway. State's witness Whitson testified that he was working for defendant in April and during the summer of 1931; that he knew the little Ford truck owned by defendant and which was fixed up in April. He was asked by solicitor: "I will ask you if, after the first of April and before the first of October that year, if that truck was operated by Mr. J. W. Everett or anyone else on the public Highways of this County?"
Defendant's objection to this question was overruled and the witness answered, "Yes, sir."
State's witness Webb testified: "I know Mr. J. W. Everett. I had a conversation with him about this truck."
He was thereupon asked by the solicitor: "Did he tell you whether or not he was the owner?"
Defendant's objection to this question was overruled and the witness answered: "Yes, sir, he said it was his truck."
The jury returned a verdict of guilty, assessing a fine of $15. Defendant not having paid the fine and costs, the court sentenced him to 10 days hard labor to pay the fine and 131 days to pay the costs.
Defendant appealed.
J. W. Everett, pro se.
It was error to permit the state to ask witness Whitson whether he had seen defendant or any one else operate the truck on the highway. It was not shown that the some one else was the agent of the appellant or had any connection with him. Appellant would not be guilty if some one else so operated the truck without his knowledge or consent. In the absence of qualification, and failing to show it was made without the influence of threats or reward, it was error to allow the witness to testify to a statement by appellant that the truck was his.
Thos. E. Knight, Jr., Atty. Gen., for the State.
Brief did not reach the Reporter.
Any person charged with, or on trial for a criminal offense, is entitled to a fair and impartial trial, for the law is, that no person shall be accused, arrested, detained, or tried, except in the manner and form provided by law. It makes no difference how guilty a person might be, these sacred and valuable constitutional and statutory rights of the citizen cannot be disregarded by trial courts, over the objection of the accused, and such unlawful acts affirmed, on the ground that the citizen was not injured by thus being deprived of his rights. It is difficult to understand how it is possible that a citizen is not injured when he is deprived of such rights. As stated in the case of Patterson v. State, 202 Ala. 65, 68, 79 So. 459, 462: "The guilty, as well as the innocent, have a right to be tried in accordance with the law of the land. The innocent ought not to be punished, and the law does not intend or provide that they shall be punished; and as to the guilty, the law provides that such shall not be punished except in the mode and manner provided by the law."
In the instant case state witness C. L. Webb was permitted to testify, over the objection and exception of appellant, as to an alleged confession of the defendant relative to his ownership of the truck in question. No semblance of a predicate was laid or even attempted. The evidence should not have been allowed for confessions are prima facie involuntary and inadmissible and before being allowed to go to the jury in a criminal case it must affirmatively be shown to the satisfaction of the court that they were made voluntarily. Minton v. State, 20 Ala. App. 176, 101 So. 169. Here, the objection interposed was based upon the grounds that it was irrelevant, incompetent, immaterial, and illegal — a general objection — this objection, though general, was sufficient. Poarch v. State, 19 Ala. App. 161, 95 So. 781; McAlpine v. State, 117 Ala. 93, 23 So. 130. In the Poarch Case, supra, the court said: "A general objection to testimony as to confessions of defendant, or that the question propounded calls for irrelevant, inadmissible, and illegal evidence, is sufficient for its exclusion, in the absence of a proper predicate." The court erred in overruling the objection, and the exception reserved in this connection must be sustained.
The question propounded to state witness Whitson, by the state, was objectionable because of the last clause; for it was immaterial if "anyone else" operated the truck on the public highway unless it was with the knowledge or consent of the accused. This insistence of appellant is also sustained.
For the errors indicated the judgment of conviction from which this appeal was taken is reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.