Gillman v. State

Gillman v. State, 51 So. 722 (Ala. 1910)

Court: Supreme Court of Alabama · State Highest Courts
Decided: February 3, 1910
Judges: Anderson, Mayfield, McClellan, Sayre
Citations: 51 So. 722165 Ala. 1351910 Ala. LEXIS 73
Disposition: Reversed and remanded.

Headnotes

1. Witnesses; Credibility; -Prior Conviction. — Section 4008, Code 1907, contemplates convictions for violation of the state laws and does not authorize proof of conviction for a violation of municipal ordinances for the purpose of affecting the credibility of a witness. 2. Same. — -Proof of a conviction for assault and battery is not admissible to affect a witness’s credibility under the rule permitting evidence of prior conviction of offenses involving moral turpitude.

Summary

Abusive, Insulting or Obscene Language. Appeal from Bessemer City Court. Heard before Hon. William Jackson. Mrs. W. P. Gillman was convicted of using' abusive, insulting or obscene language within the hearing or presence of a woman, and she appeals. — Counsel discuss the errors assigned, but without citation of authority.

Syllabus and headnotes are prepared by the reporter or publisher, not the court, and are not part of the opinion.

Opinion of the Court — Sayre

Text extracted by OCR from a scanned original; check the original for exact wording.

SAYRE, J.

— On her cross-examintion as a witness in her own behalf the defendant was required to answer whether she had been convicted of an assault and battery in the mayor’s court, by which, we take it, was meant that she had been convicted of the violation of an ordinance of the city of Bessemer punishing assault and battery. There are two reasons why this was error:

1. Section 4008 of the Code, relating to the competency and credibility of witnesses as affected by conviction for crime, contemplates only convictions for violations of the state laws, and not conviction's for violations of municipal ordinances. — Cheatham v. State, 59 Ala. 40 .

2. A mere assault and battery does not involve moral turpitude. Moral turpitude signifies an inherent quality of baseness, vileness, depravity. Assaults and batteries are frequently the result of transient ebullitions of passion, to which a high order of men are liable, and do not necessarily involve any inherent element of moral turpitnre.

Reversed and remanded.

Anderson, McClellan, and Mayfield, JJ., concur.

How later courts describe this case

No later court has written an explanatory parenthetical about this case yet.

Cited by 40 cases

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Relies on it most ⓘ

Johnson v. State629 So. 2d 708 (Ala. Crim. App. 1993)
Norris v. State156 So. 556 (Ala. 1934)
Ex Parte McIntosh443 So. 2d 1283 (Ala. 1983)
Sims v. Callahan112 So. 2d 776 (Ala. 1959)
In re Rothrock106 P.2d 907 (Cal. 1940)
Pippin v. State73 So. 340 (Ala. 1916)

Most recent

Cottrell v. NAT. COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASS'N975 So. 2d 306 (Ala. 2007)
Hall v. State681 So. 2d 637 (Ala. Crim. App. 1994)
Johnson v. State629 So. 2d 708 (Ala. Crim. App. 1993)
Ex Parte McIntosh443 So. 2d 1283 (Ala. 1983)
Mayton v. State296 So. 2d 249 (Ala. Crim. App. 1974)
Birmingham v. Evans300 So. 2d 396 (Ala. Crim. App. 1974)

Citing references are not a citator: they show that a later opinion cites this case, not whether it followed, distinguished, or overruled it. Check negative history before relying on this case.

Authorities cited 1

Depth	Case	Cited by
	Cheatham v. State, 59 Ala. 40 (1877)	9

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