Walton v. State

295 So. 2d 262, 52 Ala. App. 541, 1974 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1112
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
DecidedMay 7, 1974
Docket6 Div. 552
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 295 So. 2d 262 (Walton 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
Walton v. State, 295 So. 2d 262, 52 Ala. App. 541, 1974 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1112 (Ala. Ct. App. 1974).

Opinion

SIMMONS, Supernumerary Circuit Judge.

Appellant-defendant was indicted and convicted by a jury for murder in the first degree. Punishment was fixed at life imprisonment, judgment entered therefor and this appeal therefrom.

The victim of the homicide was Raphael Hill, a black male. The place was Westside Lounge, Ensley, Alabama, in Jefferson County. The lounge was a resort primarily for blacks, and owned and operated by a black, Fred Jones, who was present when the homicide occurred. Alcoholic beverages and food were served to customers to the tune of a music machine as desired. The time was around 1:30 A.M. on Sunday, February 14, 1972.

The appellant entered a plea of not guilty to the indictment. The state introduced evidence, largely if not wholly circumstantial, to establish allegations of the indictment. The appellant did not take the witness stand, nor did he put up any witnesses or evidence. When the state rested, he moved to exclude the evidence. The court overruled the motion and submitted the issues under the plea to the jury. There was no motion for a new trial.

It appears from the evidence of the state that there were several customers in the lounge at the time of the homicide. Raphael Hill, the deceased victim, was sitting at the bar of the lounge. Four other customers were sitting at a table preparing to eat some food that was served to them. Other customers were at another table. The lights were dimmed to the extent that visibility was impaired. Two shotgun blasts with slight spacing between rang out. The deceased was the victim of one of the blasts, and Henry C. Wayne, also a customer, was the victim of another of the blasts. Wayne had to have his arm amputated as a result of his wound.

Immediately after the shotgun blasts, two persons ran to the exit door, and while so proceeding to the door, two pistol shots were fired at them by Fred Jones, the owner of the business. These shots did not stop their hurried exit. Jones could not identify the retreating persons, nor the ones who triggered the shotgun blasts. The dim lighting impaired identification.

It is not necessary to delineate all the evidence, but only so much as points to the guilt of the appellant as the one who fired one or more of the blasts, or, if not, who [543]*543was an accessory to the shooting and thereby became the principal and subject to the indictment that charged him with the offense. We will make further advertence to this principle later in this opinion.

According to the evidence, there were five male blacks who arrived late in the evening and took seats at one of the tables. One of these persons was the state’s witness William Johnson. These five persons were accompanied in another automobile by Wilman Walton (appellant-defendant) and Aaron Jones. The witness, Johnson, made an in-court identification of Wilman Walton. The latter two, Walton and Jones, were seated at another table the night of the homicide. Four other patrons were seated nearby in the same room. This witness used a plat (not in the record but in evidence) to identify the seating arrangement of the four with him. The appellant and Aaron Jones were seated at another table.

It appears from the evidence of this witness (and another witness) that an argument ensued between Aaron Jones and “another guy at the other table.” Aaron remained seated but the “other guy”, stood up. The argument was inaudible to the witness due to the music that was being played. This “guy”, in about four or five minutes, “stood up with a knife in his hand —looked like a steak knife.” Aaron Jones did not have a weapon. The witness saw no other weapon at that time. Jones stood up twice.

In about ten or fifteen minutes, Aaron Jones and appellant both started out the door. As they were about to leave, a man at a table playing with a knife in his hand said, “Hey, Nigger, want to go?” Witness stated Walton and Jones walked on out the door but came back in five or ten minutes.

When they came back.both of them had what “looked like a barrel under their coat.” It was then that the man at the end of the table came around. He had what appeared to be a steak knife in his hand. He got about halfway to the table and stopped. The shooting started but the witness was not looking at Jones and Walton. When this happened, he saw the bartender, Fred Jones, shoot. Witness did not know what became of the man at the table. The witness was trying to get out as quickly as he could.

On re-direct examination the witness testified that Aaron Jones and Walton, when they came back in the door, each had what appeared to be a gun barrel under their respective coats. On cross-examination, the witness said he did not see the “whole gun” but in his judgment, it was a gun.

A police officer testified that he got two shotguns from the home of Aaron Jones. These guns were marked as exhibits three and four for identification, but so far as we were able to find, were not introduced in evidence.

A deputy coroner, after being qualified as an expert, testified that the deceased Raphael Hill had about sixty shotgun pellet wounds on the right side of his midline, and about ten on his left; that these wounds caused Hill’s death.

Police Officer J. E. Webb testified that he left the scene of the homicide about 3 :30 A.M. and went to Lloyd Nolan Hospital where Henry C. Wayne was in the emergency room. The witness proceeded from there in the direction of his home. However, he answered a call and went to University Hospital where he saw two police officers. These officers were investigating the shooting of appellant Wilman Walton. After talking with the officers, the appellant, as he had previously told the two officers, told the witness as follows:

“A. He told me that he was walking, going home, near Sixteenth Street and Twelfth Avenue, North, when he passed a group of black males on the corner in that area and heard what sounded like a firecracker or a shot and felt a pain in his leg and discovered he was shot.”

[544]*544The witness further testified that he saw the injury to the appellant’s leg and in describing it said:

“A. There was what appeared to me to be a gunshot wound to the thigh.”

He further testified that he did not recover the bullet from any official or from the appellant at that time. The witness then went home.

Witness Henry C. Wayne, the person whose arm was wounded and had to be amputated, testified that he and his companions ordered some food between 12:00 and 1:00 o’clock; that after placing the order, he went home after some money, came back in abottt fifteen or twenty minutes, and was preparing to eat when the shotguns were fired; that he was wounded but could not identify the persons who fired the guns. The shots came from the front door.

Robert Patterson, Jr., who was with the Wayne group of patrons, testified that while Wayne was gone, “before those two fellows walked out of the lounge”, one of the guys at another table said, “he was going to kill that nigger (sic) with the hat on”; that Wayne had a hat on and so did Oscar Rivers and Ted Rivers. Witness further testified that the two men walked out and when they came hack in, they had reached “the middle of about of the first table and that is when the first shot was fired.” It was a shotgun. Just before the shots were fired, “the light, the little brown-skinned one, he said he didn’t kill anyone in Vietnam, it was a good time to kill them now.”

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Related

James v. State
351 So. 2d 693 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 1977)
Walton v. State
307 So. 2d 713 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 1975)

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Bluebook (online)
295 So. 2d 262, 52 Ala. App. 541, 1974 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1112, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/walton-v-state-alacrimapp-1974.