State v. Tally

102 Ala. 25, 15 So. 722 (1894)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

About January 6, 1894, Ross left his home in Scottsboro surreptitiously under and because of an apprehension that his life was in imminent peril at the hands of the Skeltons. He remained away from Scottsboro under this apprehension until Tuesday night, January 30th, when he returned on account of the illness of his wife. Ross left Scottsboro in a hack for Stevenson, eighteen miles distant, intending to catch a train there on another road and go on to Chattanooga. With him were his brother-in-law, Bloodwood, a negro man, John Calloway, and the driver, one Hammons. All of the party were armed; Ross had a gun and a pistol, Bloodwood had a gun, and Calloway and Hammons each had a pistol. They arrived in Stevenson about 10:45 that morning. D, passing at the time from the hotel to the station, walked around the hack, which had stopped immediately in front of him; and met, shook hands and passed the usual salutations with Ross, who had gotten out on the side next the station, and then turned away and started on toward the station. A shot was fired at Bloodwood, from behind the depot platform. This was followed by another from the same place, and then by other shots from two guns behind the platform and from a pile of telegraph poles a little way down the road in the direction from which the hack had come. Some one or more of these succeeding shots took effect in Ross's legs, and he fell. Bloodwood was also wounded and ran away. The team ran away with Hammons. Calloway does not appear to have been hit, but in some way, he fell with and under Ross. Ross, while standing with his gun in his hand and looking in the direction of the telegraph poles, was shot and killed by a man came to the corner of the house behind him. The man who fired the first and two or three other shots from behind the platform was Robert Skelton. The man who fired the other shots was James Skelton. The man who fired from the telegraph poles was Walter Skelton. John Skelton, who reached the corner of the oil house behind Ross, shot him in the back of the head and killed him. And it was Robert who came up after he was dead and again shot him in the head.

The Ross family and the Skelton family were feuding. Ross left town, followed by four Skeltons. Ross was not aware that he was being followed. One of Ross' relatives sent a telegram, warning him of the followers. Tally (D) knew the telegraph operator in the next town and called him to stop delivery of the message. Ross did not receive the message and was ambushed and killed by the Skeltons. Two charges were made against D as Judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit. The first was willful neglect of duty while in office in knowing of people's intent to kill he willfully failed to intervene in his official capacity to prevent the execution of that intent. The second count charges complicity on the part of D in the murder of Ross, by the hands of said Skeltons. D was a brother-in-law to all of the Skeltons having married their sister who was a cousin to John. Ross had seduced or been criminally intimate with a sister of three of them and Mrs. Tally. It was proved that both the Skeltons and D had full knowledge of the liaison between Ross and Miss Skelton--had had possession of and read all the implicatory letters from him to her--long before the killing of Ross. Cooling time had elapsed. If their passion continued, it was without justification of law. And whether as a matter of fact life was taken in a passion so continuing or not, the offense of the Skeltons, and of D, if he participated in the homicide. D was convicted of aiding and abetting the murder. D appealed.