It was held (by the Alabama Supreme Court) that opinion evidence that the defendant “was foolishly fond of women” is improper character evidence.
Just in case you need something to cite for that proposition.
I previously have posted some favorite bits of old Mississippi cases– for instance, black-letter law for the proposition that “It is a fact of common knowledge that when a dog has once acquired the habit of egg-sucking there is no available way by which he may be broken of it, and that there is no calculable limit to his appetite in the indulgence of the habitual propensity.”
Today, I quite accidently bumped into this opening paragraph, from an Alabama Supreme Court opinion:
The defendant was convicted of the offense of miscegenation, and sentenced to the penitentiary for three years. During the trial the defendant introduced testimony to prove his general good character. On cross-examination, a witness was asked by the solicitor, “Do you know the general character of defendant about women, and, if so, what is that character?” The witness replied “that he did from what was said about it, and that his general character about women was, from what was said about it, that he was foolishly fond of women.”
Trying to think of a passage I like, this came to mind:
“Although we cannot properly review this assignment for the reasons already stated and we decline to reverse this conviction on this assignment, we consider the argument improper. The jurors are representatives of the community in one sense, but they are not to vote in a representative capacity. Each juror is to apply the law to the evidence and vote accordingly. The issue which each juror must resolve is not whether or not he or she wishes to ‘send a message’ but whether or not he or she believes that the evidence showed the defendant to be guilty of the crime charged. The jury is an arm of the State but it is not an arm of the prosecution. The State includes both the prosecution and the accused. The function of the jury is to weigh the evidence and determine the facts. When the prosecution wishes to send a message they should employ Western Union. Mississippi jurors are not messenger boys.”
Williams v. State, 522 So. 2d 201, 209 (Miss. 1988) (bold added)
… The weirdest dissent I can think of, btw, is Rehnquist’s in Texas v. Johnson, the flag-burning case, wherein he quotes “Barbara Frietchie” in its entirety.
I once pored over some Clarion Ledgers from the 60s or 70s looking for a crazy murder story I’d heard about. There is no way to describe it that would do it justice.