Johnson v. State

329 So. 2d 621, 57 Ala. App. 561, 1976 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1989
Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama·Decided March 30, 1976·No. 4 Div. 355·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

LEIGH M. CLARK, Supernumerary Circuit Judge.

Appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary.

The alleged victim was his wife. Except as to the whereabouts of appellant at the time of the homicide and as to the identity of the murderer, little conflict, if any, is to be found in the evidence.

About 9:30 P.M. November 29, 1974, the body of the victim was observed in the front of a driveway at 302 North Lena Street in Dothan. A patrol car was approaching at the time, and it was flagged down. Her head was battered and bloody; there were numerous bruises and abrasions on the right and left forearms. An autopsy showed that there was a massive compound fracture of the skull.

Upon defendant’s arrest later that night, his clothes that he had on at the time, including his boots, were removed from him. They were afterwards examined by a serologist, who testified that there was blood and brain tissue on them.

A sergeant in the criminal investigation division of the Dothan Police Department testified that on December 2, 1974, he searched a pile of leaves behind a dentist’s office about three blocks from the scene of the crime and found a blue denim jacket in which were rolled up a large ball-peen hammer and a pair of tan gloves, on which he [564]*564observed what appeared to be brain tissue and several strands of what appeared to be light-colored hair. They were turned over to the same serologist who examined and testified as to blood and brain tissue on the clothes of defendant, who also testified that the denim jacket and the ball-peen hammer revealed the presence of brain tissue thereon and human blood of the same tyPe> group “O,” found upon defendant’s clothes and boots.

There was evidence that within a few weeks prior to the alleged crime defendant was heard to threaten his wife with cutting her head off and setting it on the table to look at and that “he was going to fix her face.”

Miss Carla Hargue testified that as she was sitting in an automobile in front of 302 North Lena Street she noticed a man behind some bushes at the house next door. She watched him for about fifteen minutes. The man crawled out into the yard and hid behind a tree. As the witness and the others in the automobile rode down the street, the man jumped from behind the tree with a hammer and chased the automobile. The occupants of the automobile drove to a service station and called the police. They then returned to 302 North Lena Street and the man jumped out of some bushes on the opposite side of the street and chased them down the street again. The occupants rode around the block and upon their return they noticed something lying in the street. At that time the witness said she saw the man run from behind a house at the corner of Adams and Lena Streets running to the south. That night, after defendant was arrested, the witness said she was shown a picture that she identified as a photograph of the man whom she had seen with the hammer that night. Upon being asked as a witness on the trial whether she could identify defendant as the man she had seen, she replied that she could not. According to the undisputed evidence, there was a great change in the appearance of defendant between the time of his arrest and the time of his trial.- At the time of his trial his hair was cut short, collar length. At the time of his arrest, his hair was longer “and he had a soiled appearance and his hair appeared to be dirty and oily. It was not combed as neatly.”

Defendant took the stand and denied that he killed his wife. He denied being present at the scene of the crime. He was supported as to an alibi to some extent by five other witnesses. Only one of them, however, accounted for his whereabouts elsewhere for a period of about thirty minutes before the evidence indicated that his wife was killed. The alibi testimony in general was to the effect that he was in the general area of that part of Dothan where the crime was committed during the early part of the night of November 29, 1974.

The evidence was sufficient to support the verdict of the jury.

Appellant complains of the admission in evidence of the blue denim jacket and the ball-peen hammer and gloves found three days after the homicide about three blocks from the murder scene. Appellant cites Dorch v. State, 40 Ala.App. 475, 115 So.2d 287, in support of this contention. 'We think Dorch v. State supports an opposite view. It was there stated:

“Inadmissibility because of remoteness is confided largely to the trial judge’s discretion. McElroy, Law of Evidence in Alabama, § 21, pp. 6 and 7; 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 638.”

In Dorch a key was found in the vicinity eight days after the alleged crime. It was held that the trial court was not in error in admitting evidence as to the key.

It is argued by appellant that the admission in evidence of the results of the tests run on the clothing of appellant was erroneous, by reason of some evidence that the officers did not wash their hands be[565]*565tween the time one of them handled the victim’s body and another had collected blood samples and particles of brain tissue from the body and the time that they removed appellant’s flothing. The one who touched the body sajd that he only touched it “On the right arm.” Upon being asked whether he got anything on his hands at the time he touched the body, he replied that he did not. The other officer did not touch the body and had little, if anything, to do with taking the clothes from the other officer after they had been removed from defendant, other than placing them in plastic evidence bags and sealing and labeling the bags. The notion that there could have been some blood, hair or tissue removed from the corpse, after it was viewed by officers and others, to the clothes of defendant before his clothes were placed in plastic evidence bags is ingenious, but it is not based upon any reasonable view of the evidence, in our opinion. The items of clothing mentioned were properly admitted in evidence.

On cross-examination of defendant, the State developed that he had been convicted of grand larceny in 1966 and of burglary in 1965. On redirect examination, he was asked, “Johnny, when was the last time you got into any trouble?” Before he was allowed to fully answer, he was asked on redirect examination, “I am talking about when you got convicted of any crime?” It appears from the record that there was not complete understanding between defendant and the attorney conducting the redirect examination of him, but it seems clear that his testimony was subject to a reasonable interpretation that he had not been convicted of a crime since he was convicted of grand larceny, which he then said was in 1965, rather than in 1966, as he had testified on cross-examination. On recross-examination, the following occurred:

“Q. Weren’t you convicted in June of 1968 for Resisting Arrest ?
“MR. ADAMS: Judge, I object.
“MR. SORRELLS: He opened it up.
“MR. ADAMS: Judge, it is not a crime involving moral turpitude.
“THE COURT: No, it is not a crime involving moral turpitude, but you asked him when was the last time as I remember when he was in trouble.
“MR. ADAMS: I changed that, I think to when was the last time he was convicted of any crime.

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Johnson v. State, 329 So. 2d 621, 57 Ala. App. 561, 1976 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1989 (Ala. Ct. App. 1976).

329 So. 2d 621 (Johnson v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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