O'NEAL v. State

298 So. 2d 62, 53 Ala. App. 133, 1974 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1231
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
DecidedJune 4, 1974
Docket5 Div. 197
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 298 So. 2d 62 (O'NEAL v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
O'NEAL v. State, 298 So. 2d 62, 53 Ala. App. 133, 1974 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1231 (Ala. Ct. App. 1974).

Opinion

HARRIS, Judge.

Appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree and received a life sentence in the pentitentiary. Prior to arraignment, he was determined to be an indigent and two lawyers were appointed to represent him. He interposed two pleas to the indictment, (1) not guilty and (2) not guilty by reason of insanity. Appellant did not testify and offered no testimony in his defense. Since there was no evidence introduced in support of his insanity plea, the trial court did not submit that issue to the jury. Trial counsel was appointed to represent appellant on this appeal.

On the night of October 17, 1972, three black men drove within a block of a store located on Dean Road in Auburn, Alabama. Two of the men entered the store and the third remained on the outside in front of the store. They were subsequently identified as appellant, Clarence Cofield, and Norris Lee Floyd. Appellant and Co-field went inside the store. Appellant was armed with a pistol and Cofield had a knife.

While the two were inside the store an Auburn student, Alfred Cook, drove up and parked his car and started to enter the store. Floyd stopped him and told him not to go in the store as a “stickup” was in progress. Cook retreated to his car and Floyd got in the car on the passenger side. Cook asked him if he was in on this and Floyd said, “Hell, no. Let’s get out of here.” Cook backed out to go to a nearby self-service station to call the police and Floyd rode with him. As Cook was driving from the store, he saw two black men come out of the store ánd run into the woods near the store. Cook told the operator at the service station to call the police as a robbery had occurred at the store. After the police were alerted, Cook and Floyd drove back to the store where Cook told Floyd to “Let’s go inside and check on the man and see if he’s all right, if we can help him.” They got out of the car and started in the store when Floyd stopped and said he didn’t want to go in there, saying, “The man is liable to be dead.” Floyd then disappeared into the night.

Lieutenant Frank DeGraffenried of the Auburn Police Department got the robbery call at 8:45 P.M. and arrived at the store at 8:47 P.M. He went in the store and found the body of the owner and operator of the store, Charles Kirkley, lying on the floor behind the check-out counter. He testified:

*135 “Well, the body was lying kind of face down; he had a hat, a brown hat clutched in his hand; it was mostly under him. I felt for a pulse and I didn’t find any pulse and I felt on his back and I felt a little lump under the skin. There was a black hat laying on the floor and a black wig laying on the floor, a gold-colored watch, and there were signs of a scuffle. Things had been knocked off the shelves and laying around on the floor.”

This witness also found an open brown paper bag on the floor near the cash register. He observed currency in the bag.

The Lieutenant did not touch any thing on the floor and in the store except in feeling the body to see if the man was alive. He called Mr. Carlos Rabren and Mr. Richard Roper of the State Department of Toxicology and Criminal Investigation at Auburn and they immediately came to the scene of the homicide. Lieutenant Ronnie Watkins of the Lee County Sheriff’s Department was called to take photographs of the store and scene of the homicide, including the body, the black hat, brown hat, black wig, the bag of money, a paring knife on the floor, and items or articles which had been knocked from the shelves and were lying on the floor, and some broken glass jars scattered around on the floor. After proper predicate was laid these photographs were admitted into evidence over appellant’s objections.

The body was carried to the morgue room of the Lee County Hospital where a post mortem examination was conducted by Mr. Roper at 10:30 P.M. on the night of the killing. Mr. Roper’s qualifications were admitted by the attorneys for appellant, and he gave the following description of the general external examination:

“I found eight wounds on the body. There was a deep, cleancut laceration two and a quarter inches in length across the point of the chin, across this general area on the middle of the chin. A cleancut laceration measuring one-half inch in length was found on the superior left chest in the upper portion of the left side of the chest. A third cleancut wound one-half inch in length was observed on the left chest, five inches left of the midline and located on the nipple line in this location here (indicating). There is an abrasion on the anterior chest right above the breastbone. A circular penetrating wound was observed in the middle of the left chest in approximately this location here (indicating), one and a half inches above the common nipple line. The wound was approximately midline of the chest. A cleancut superficial laceration one and a quarter inches in length was noted on the posterior surface of the right upper arm in this area here (indicating). The other remaining wounds on the body were small superficial scratch-type lacerations.”

After disrobing the body, Mr. Roper took photographs of the external wounds above described and these photographs were received in evidence over objections of appellant that they were calculated to inflame the passions of the jury and had no probative value in the case.

After the external examination, Mr. Roper performed a thoracic abdominal examination and also a cranial examination. He described his findings as follows:

“I found on examination of the organs of the chest from the hemorrhagic path from the wound in the middle of the chest, another hemorrhagic path which penetrated down through the breastbone through the right lung and through the aorta which is the main artery out of the heart supplying the body, the pulmonary trunk, which is the artery from the heart to the lungs, and the path went through these arteries and then again went through the right lung and into the musculature of the back. Within the musculature of the back, I removed a large caliber bullet.”

*136 He expressed the conclusion that death resulted from hemorrhage and shock associated with a gunshot wound to the middle of the chest in which two major arteries were penetrated. It was also his opinion that the cleancut wounds or lacerations on the arms, chin and body of the deceased were made by a knife or a knife-like object.

Mr. Carlos Rabren, Assistant Director of the Alabama Department of Toxicology and Criminal Investigation in Auburn, testified that he was at the scene of the crime at the same time as Mr. Roper. He said, “I noticed and recovered from underneath the right side of the body, a brown or tan-colored hat; and laying next to the left foot of the body, partially on the left foot of the body, was a black-colored hat. Just outside the cashier’s booth, behind a vacuum-type machine that was turned over was a black Afro-type wig there at the scene.”

This witness further testified that he found a paring knife not too far from the wig and a broken piece of blade from this knife near the vacuum machine. He said that the knife had bloodstains on it, and there were bloodstains on the broken blade.

Mr. Rabren took possession of these articles, put identifying marks or tags on them, and the next morning he turned them over to Mr. Tellis D.

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Bluebook (online)
298 So. 2d 62, 53 Ala. App. 133, 1974 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1231, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/oneal-v-state-alacrimapp-1974.