Arthur B. Foster

The case involved appellant Edgar Roberts' conviction for first-degree murder after he shot and killed Deputy Sheriff Kyle Young at his home following officers' response to a report of a family argument and drinking on Easter Sunday 1952. Officers entered without a warrant, were shown liquor by Roberts' wife, and a confrontation ensued when Roberts grabbed a rifle and fired at Young, who returned fire. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and life sentence, reasoning that the trial court's oral charge and given instructions adequately covered self-defense and related issues, that numerous requested defense charges were properly refused because they ignored the evidence as a whole or the circumstances of the officers' actions, and that the jury's verdict was supported by the evidence.

criminal lawprocedure

This case is an original petition for mandamus asking the Alabama Supreme Court to require a circuit court judge to set aside an order granting a new trial after a default judgment. The underlying action was a civil suit against a non-resident defendant arising from a collision in Alabama, in which the plaintiff obtained a default judgment after attempting service through the secretary of state under statutory provisions for out-of-state motorists. The circuit court, acting within thirty days of the default judgment, set it aside upon proof that the defendant had not in fact been served despite record indications of compliance. The Supreme Court held that a trial court has a nondiscretionary duty to vacate a default judgment within the thirty-day period when lack of service is shown, and therefore denied the petition for mandamus.

procedure

This case was a petition by attorney Dozier seeking review of his disbarment by the Alabama State Bar's board of commissioners, based on charges that he accepted a $1,000 fee in 1946 to challenge a probated will but failed to act or refund the money, along with a minor related matter. The court reversed the disbarment and discharged the defendant. It held that the proceedings were barred by the three-year statute of limitations for disbarment actions under state law, reasoning that the board of commissioners exercises judicial power and thus qualifies as a court subject to that limit, which had long expired since the alleged conduct. The court further observed that the facts would not have justified disbarment even if timely.

procedure

This case involves landowners who received title to property subject to an existing oil, gas, and mineral lease granted by their parents to Sun Oil Company; the landowners later conveyed half the mineral rights to Humble Oil and Refining Company, making the parties cotenants in the minerals. The bill in equity sought cancellation of the entire Sun lease on grounds of covenant violations and abandonment, with no relief requested as to Humble. The trial court overruled separate demurrers by Sun and Humble, but the Alabama Supreme Court reversed on appeal, reasoning that cotenants holding only an undivided half interest cannot obtain cancellation of a lease affecting the whole property when the other cotenant opposes the relief.

propertyprocedure

This case concerned the validity of charitable trusts established in Charles Henderson's will, which directed the formation of an educational association after twenty years to build school buildings in Pike County, followed by a memorial association to construct and maintain a hospital for crippled children. The heirs at law challenged the trusts as violating the rule against perpetuities, arguing that the delayed and contingent gifts could not vest within the required timeframe and that the repudiated cy pres doctrine could not save them. The Alabama Supreme Court held the trusts invalid, reasoning that the interests were springing uses subject to contingencies not certain to occur within lives in being plus twenty-one years, the immediate gifts to individual beneficiaries postponed any charitable use, and neither equitable approximation nor cy pres applied under Alabama law at the time of the testator's death. The court affirmed the prior ruling and addressed related issues of costs and the inapplicability of later statutory changes.

property

This case involves a wife's equity bill seeking to set aside a 1947 divorce decree obtained by her husband on grounds of fraud, filed after his remarriage and death in 1949. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's rulings overruling demurrers and denying motions to dismiss, allowing the suit to proceed against the second wife and an administrator ad litem for the estate. The core reasoning was that the bill adequately alleged fraud through false claims of grounds for divorce combined with misrepresentations that the suit had been dismissed, which prevented the wife from defending it, and that procedural requirements for party substitution under Equity Rule 35 were satisfied by the appointment of an administrator ad litem more than a year after the husband's death.

family lawprocedure