Allen v. State
Allen v. State
Opinion
The appellant, Nathaniel Paul Allen, was convicted of murder, a violation of §
The appellant presents five issues for review.
To be guilty of murder under §
The state's evidence tended to show that the appellant shot and killed James Ayers on September 27, 1990. Ayers was talking to Carolyn Middlebrooks at her car in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Birmingham, Alabama, when the appellant approached the front of the car. Ayers walked toward the appellant, and the appellant pointed a .9 mm pistol at him and fired several times. Ayers ran behind the car and then into a field adjacent to the apartment complex. When the police arrived, Ayers's body was lying in the field. The cause of death was a bullet wound to his heart.
Both Carolyn Middlebrooks and Derrick McDonald, eyewitnesses to the shooting, identified a person they knew as "Butch" as the person who shot Ayers. Both Middlebrooks and McDonald identified the appellant as the person they knew as "Butch" and as the person who shot Ayers. When Ayers was running from the appellant, he also identified the person as "Butch."
On the night of the shooting, Middlebrooks and McDonald told an investigating officer that someone who they knew as "Butch" had shot Ayers. Later, they both identified the appellant as Butch from a photograph.
"This Court, in determining whether the State proved its prima facie case, is required to view the evidence in a light most favorable to the State and cannot substitute its judgment for that of the jury." Marks v. State,
McDonald entered into an agreement with the state that he would testify in return for being charged only with possession of cocaine instead of a greater offense. Also, it was agreed that his testimony at the appellant's trial would not be used against him in the prosecution of the possession charge.
During the trial, both the appellant and the state referred to the immunity agreement and questioned McDonald extensively about it. The appellant's argument is not that the jury should not have known of the agreement but that the jury should not have been allowed to see the complete written agreement. The court instructed the jury that it was "not to use that agreement on the facts of it being true, but only for the purpose of assessing the believability or the credibility that you give to Derrick McDonald."
"The bias of a state's witness in favor of the state or against the accused may be shown by evidence of statements, acts, relationships or charges of crime that would reasonably give rise to an inference that the witness is biased." C. Gamble, McElroy's Alabama Evidence § 149.01(10) (4th ed. 1991). This court has held that in using a plea agreement to show bias, "the full terms of [the] agreement must be allowed to be placed before the jury in passing upon the credibility" of the witnesses. Dawkins v. State,
"Any act proving or tending to prove the accused's effort or desire to obliterate, destroy, or suppress evidence of a crime is relevant and admissible even if it involves evidence of a separate offense." Beaver v. State,
The appellant has not provided us with the entire record of the prosecution's closing argument to which the appellant objects. We review the argument as a whole to determine if any part is prejudicial and violative of the appellant's rights. "It is the appellant's duty . . . to make a correct and complete record on appeal." Holder v. State,
Furthermore, as this court stated in Johnson v. State,
Bankhead v. State,"Questions of the propriety of argument of counsel are largely within the trial court's discretion, McCullough v. State,
357 So.2d 397 ,399 (Ala.Cr.App. 1978), and that court is given broad discretion in determining what is permissible argument. Hurst v. State,397 So.2d 203 ,208 (Ala.Cr.App.), cert. denied,397 So.2d 208 (Ala. 1981). Moreover, this Court has stated that it will not reverse unless there has been an abuse of that discretion. Miller v. State,431 So.2d 586 ,591 (Ala.Cr.App. 1983)."
The United States Supreme Court has established the following standard: "[F]or a prosecutor's comments made during argument before the jury to require a new trial, the entire trial must have been so infected with unfairness as a result of these comments that the appellant was denied due process." Darden v.Wainwright,
The appellant presents eight specific remarks that he contends were prejudicial to him. We have reviewed those remarks and conclude that none of them affected the outcome of the entire proceedings. Moreover, the court instructed the jury in its oral charge that the lawyers' statements in closing arguments were not evidence.
No reversible error occurred here.
McBride v. State,"The proper mode of proving prior felony convictions which occur in a sister state is set forth in §
12-21-70 , which states in pertinent part:" 'The record and judicial proceedings of the courts of any state or territory or of any such country shall be proved or admitted in any other court within the United States by the attestation of *Page 1156 the clerk and the seal of the court annexed, if there is a seal, together with a certificate of the judge, chief justice or presiding magistrate that the said attestation is in due form. . . .' "
Prior felony convictions may be proven according to §
"In civil proceedings, §
" 'An official record kept within the United States, or any state . . . thereof . . . when admissible for any purpose, may be evidenced by an official publication thereof or by a copy attested by a person purporting to be the officer having the legal custody of the record, or his deputy. If the official record is kept without the state, the copy shall be accompanied by a certificate under oath of such person that he is the legal custodian of such record and that the laws of the state require the record to be kept.' "
The record clerk of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice — Institutional Division, S.O. Woods, Jr., had legal custody of the original files and records of the appellant's three prior Texas convictions in his office in Walker County, Texas. He attested that the copies of the records of the convictions were the same as the originals. The seal of the Texas Department of Corrections was imprinted next to his signature.
The presiding judge of the Walker County, Texas, Court, Frank J. Robinson, certified that Woods was the record clerk who had legal custody of the original records of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice — Institutional Division. He also certified that the certificates were in "due form" and that Woods's signature was genuine.
The state proved the appellant's three prior Texas convictions. The appellant was correctly sentenced as a habitual felony offender.
For the reasons stated above, the judgment in this cause is due to be affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
All the Judges concur.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Nathaniel Paul Allen v. State.
- Cited By
- 16 cases
- Status
- Published