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Smith v. State12/22/2000
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This statutory provision is mandatory; the trial court is not give any discretion in this area. McBride v. Sheppard, 624 So. 2d 1069, 1071 (Ala. 1993); Smith v. State, 482 So. 2d 1312, 1313 (Ala. Crim. App. 1985). Thus, the trial court properly excused the veniremembers who stated that they were illiterate.
VI.
The appellant contends that the admission into evidence of an extra-judicial and incriminating statement made by him to Sgt. David Jay and Sgt. Jon Beeson of the Dothan Police Department shortly after the shootings constitutes reversible error. He asserts that the prosecution failed to prove that he voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived his Fifth Amendment rights enumerated in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and failed to lay a proper predicate to show the voluntariness of the statement.
The evidence presented at the pretrial suppression hearing disclosed the following. Based on information they had received, Jay and Beeson began looking for the appellant. When they found him at around 2:15 a.m., October 20, 1996, at his father's house, they told him they wanted to talk with him and asked him to accompany them to the police station. At the station, Beeson advised the appellant of his Miranda rights; he read them aloud to the appellant from a police department form. After each right had been read aloud, Beeson asked if he understood it, and he responded that he did. After he had been read his rights, Beeson read a waiver of those rights from the same form. The appellant acknowledged that he understood the waiver; he then waived his rights and agreed to talk with the officers. He signed the waiver form around 4:45 a.m., and wrote under his signature that he had an eighth-grade education. He was then questioned by Jay and Beeson, and he gave a detailed statement implicating himself in the crime. The questioning began shortly after 4:45 a.m. and ended around 5:30 a.m. The statement was tape-recorded. The appellant was subsequently booked into the county jail around 7:00 a.m. The booking proceeding was videotaped, and the videotape was introduced into evidence at trial and is a part of the record.
Jay testified at the suppression hearing that he had had considerable experience with persons who were under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and that the appellant did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he was picked up at his father's home and during the time he was questioned and gave the statement. Jay testified that the appellant told him that he had smoked a "stem" of crack cocaine around 8:30 p.m. the previous evening, but he did not indicate that he had used any drugs or alcohol after that time. Jay further testified that the appellant, when read his Miranda rights and the waiver, indicated that he understood each and every right as it was read to him, as well as the waiver, and that he signed the waiver and agreed to give a statement. Jay testified that the appellant did not indicate at any time that he did not understand what was taking place, that no threats or promises were made to induce him to make a statement, that he did not indicate that he had any mental problems (and he did not appear to have any), that he appeared to be alert and his speech was not slurred, that he was articulate and did not hesitate to answer questions, and that he described the killings and his involvement in them in considerable detail.
At the suppression hearing, the prosecution introduced the appellant's school records, which showed that the appellant had completed his reading courses satisfactorily from grades one through eight, that he had satisfactorily completed the eighth grade, and that his average gr
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