Wilbanks v. State

266 So. 2d 609, 48 Ala. App. 540, 1968 Ala. App. LEXIS 418
CourtAlabama Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 25, 1968
Docket5 Div. 648
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 266 So. 2d 609 (Wilbanks v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alabama Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wilbanks v. State, 266 So. 2d 609, 48 Ala. App. 540, 1968 Ala. App. LEXIS 418 (Ala. Ct. App. 1968).

Opinions

CATES, Judge.

Wilbanks, tried for the murder of Barbara Lucas King and convicted of voluntary manslaughter, appeals from the judgment and from denial of a motion for new trial. His sentence was for nine years. See Wilbanks v. State, 42 Ala.App. 39, 151 So.2d 741, for former appeal.

Sunday, July 3, 1960, about dusk Barbara Lucas King, nine years old, was killed when the top of the back part of her skull was blown off. She had just lit a firecracker from a- cigarette held by her father.

Wilbanks, owner of a sports model Mauser rifle, dwelt the year rottnd on the southern shore of Lake Martin, just east of Castaway Island. . Across a slough beside Wilbanks’s house stood the cottage of Barbara’s father, John L. King.

On Friday, July 1, 1960, Mr. King, his wife and three children drove from Birmingham to spend the weekend at their cottage. On Saturday they were joined by a brother, Mr. Edward King, his wife and two children from Huntingdon, West Virginia.

The State’s case is that Wilbanks fired across an arm of the lake while behind his house; in so doing he hit the girl with a soft nose bronze jacketed 8 mm. bullet.

To lead to this result, the State brought evidence tending to show: The rim of three pieces of the rear (occipital) part of the base of her skull put together and shown by a photo (State’s Exhibit No. 16A) form an arc, about two-thirds of a circle-That opening Dr. C. J. Rehling, State Toxicologist, testified was "an exact fit of the diameter and path of an 8 mm. bullet.”

Dr. Rehling testified that he made a spectographic analysis of the material found around the edge of this hole in the bone -of the skull and found lead, antimony, traces of arsenic, copper and zinc. These same chemicals appeared in State’s Exhibits 1 and 1A-(the test and evidence bullets).

He ran a benzidine test on material removed from these bullets. This test showed blood on the “evidence” bullet. The benzidine test is a blood test, though not differential as between man or beast.

Dr. Rehling’s opinion as to the cause of the hole in the child’s head was:

“A bullet of eight millimeter (8mm) caliber of very high energy entered the head in the back and made its exist (sic— exit) just within the hair line in front thereby exploding the head.”

Sheriff Lester Holley had got to the Kings’ cottage about an hour after Barbara died. He found a hole in the outer wall of the cottage. From this hole Deputy Roy Kelly pried two pieces of metal. These pieces, Dr. Rehling testified, were, in his. opinion, the remains of a bronze jacketed bullet fired from Wilbanks’s rifle.

Putting a fountain pen in the hole from which' Kelly had pried the bullet, Rehling [542]*542was able, he testified, to project a line which went from the hole to a point where Barbara King was shown to have last stood, then through a gap between pine trees, and continued on thence across the slough to a point behind Wilbanks’s house [apparently near some willow bushes].1 By taking the course and angle of the pen as Dr. Rehling held it, Mr. P. J. Jennings, an assistant county engineer, used a transit to run a hypothetical line of flight from the hole in the wall to the bushes across the slough.

Wilbanks testified that he had not fired his rifle that day; nor had he or his wife seen anyone near the closet where he kept this weapon.

Dr. Rehling fired at least one 8 mm. ■cartridge with Wilbanks’s rifle into a box of cotton. Using a comparison microscope, he lined up the ■ marks on this bullet of lands and grooves with those on the pieces which Deputy Kelly pried from the cottage wall. This view led Rehling to believe that the bullet taken from the wall had the same unique markings as those he found on the bullet fired into the box of cotton.

Mr. King testified that in the late afternoon as he and his brother were sitting outside at the picnic table there was a tremendous explosion.

They went around the cottage, but found no clue to the source of the noise. This search, the State contends, emphasizes the probability of no bullet then being in the wall of the cottage at the place whence Deputy Kelly later pried the two pieces. King testified it was after Barbara’s death that for the first time he noticed the hole in the wall. Under cross he changed this. R. 63.

Spattered blood, brains and other human tissue, including small fragments of bone were found on the side and roof of the house as well as on the picnic table and ground.

The State did not directly link Wilbanks with the firing of the gun which killed Barbara Lucas King. The prosecution rested wholly on a chain of circumstances and Dr. Rehling’s opinion as to the bullet’s path of flight and its being fired from Wilbanks’s rifle.

To counter this evidence, Wilbanks produced Mr. C. D. Brooks, a former assistant State toxicologist, now engaged in forensic science investigatory work, and Hon. William Horace Perry, an attorney of Montgomery, an expert in photography.

The opinions of these gentlemen were to the effect that the bullet which killed Barbara Lucas King could have come from a number of places, and that the path of flight projected in Dr. Rehling’s opinion was erroneous, or at least was only one of several possible lines.

During examination in chief of witness, Holley, then High Sheriff of Elmore County, the following was recorded by the court reporter:

“A Well, the first thing that I did was introduce myself to him, because I didn’t know John, and he introduced himself to me and asked me in. So we went in and sat down and started talking and I told him there what had happened across the point therefrom him, that Barbara, the King girl and been killed, and in my opinion, it was—

“MR. RODERICK BEDDOW: Wait a minute, we object to what his opinion is, please, sir.

“MR. ROBERT ALTON: Is that what you told him?

“THE WITNESS: Yes, sir, I was speaking to John on that.

“MR. RODERICK BEDDOW: We object to what his opinion was, it wouldn’t be part of it.

“THE COURT: I understand that he said he was talking to him.

“MR. GLENN CURLEE: In the presence of the Defendant.

“MR. RODERICK BEDDOW: Yes, but he said he told the Defendant that * * *

[543]*543“THE COURT: I will give you an exception, go ahead.

“MR. RODERICK BEDDOW: Yes, but he said he told him about Barbara and about her being killed and that in his opinion, and we are going to object to his opinion, what he said his opinion was, because it calls for irrelevant, illegal, incompetent and immaterial testimony, and it doesn’t appear at this stage of his testimony that he is reciting details in connection with the alleged accident, acts done and performed at the time he arrived at the scene of the injury of this child.

“THE COURT: Well, proceed, overrule your objection.

“MR. RODERICK BEDDOW: We except.

“MR. JOE GOODWIN: May I state further some additional ground? Judge, if we are going to allow the Sheriff at this time to testify that he gave John Wilbanks, the Defendant, an opinion at that time, that opinion goes before the jury. If we are going to do that, we might as well let him give his opinion now, it is still an opinion although it was said in front of the Defendant.

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Related

Walker v. State
369 So. 2d 814 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 1978)
Wilbanks v. State
266 So. 2d 623 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 1971)
State v. Wilbanks
266 So. 2d 619 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1969)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
266 So. 2d 609, 48 Ala. App. 540, 1968 Ala. App. LEXIS 418, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilbanks-v-state-alactapp-1968.