Seals, a Negro, was convicted of the rape of a white woman and was sentenced to death by electrocution. His conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Alabama. Seals v. State, 1960, 271 Ala. 142, 122 So.2d 513. A petition for leave to file in the trial court a petition for writ of error coram nobis was denied by the Supreme Court of Alabama, Ex parte Seals, 1961, 271 Ala. 622, 126 So.2d 474. Certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court of the United States, "without prejudice to an application for a writ of habeas corpus in the appropriate United States District Court." Seals v. Alabama, 1961, 366 U.S. 954, 81 S.Ct. 1909, 6 L.Ed.2d 1246. Application was made pursuant to that suggestion, and this appeal is from the judgment of the district court denying the application for habeas corpus.
The question raised on the second Aaron appeal was that the defendant's rights under § 6 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 were violated in that he was "compelled to give evidence against himself" because he was asked to repeat certain words. The decision in Seals v. State, 271 Ala. 142, 122 So.2d 513, is not in conflict with the Aaron decision under the particular facts of the case. Seals was not compelled to repeat any words which the prosecutrix said were used by her assailants during the attack upon her.
On June 2, 1960, we affirmed the judgment of the trial court. We denied application for rehearing on August 18, 1960. — Seals v. State, 271 Ala. 142, 122 So.2d 513. Seals did not seek a review of our action by the Supreme Court of the United States. However, on November 1, 1960, Seals filed in this court his petition to be permitted to file a petition for writ of error coram nobis in the Circuit Court of Mobile. That was the proper procedure at the time, since we had affirmed the judgment of the trial court, but an application to this court is no longer necessary. Under Supreme Court Rule 50, adopted December 6, 1965, "Petitions for writs of error coram nobis shall be filed in the trial court without first applying for and receiving permission of the Supreme Court; * * *"
* * *" However, in view of the emphasis exhibited by Merrill, J., in Seals v. State, 271 Ala. 142, 122 So.2d 513, I see no adoption of the South Carolina rule. Even though the use of the same words may be highly suggestible, Alabama seems uncommitted as to labeling the device as self-incriminatory.
It is only fair to the trial court and the court reporter to state that, at the time this case was tried, the law as we knew it did not require that the qualifying questions and answers to jurors be transcribed unless some objection was made during the qualification. See: Title 15, § 380; Supreme Court Rule 25; Davis v. State, 259 Ala. 212, 66 So.2d 714; and Seals v. State, 271 Ala. 142, 122 So.2d 513. Since the trial, the law has been changed by the Supreme Court of the United States in its decision in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776. In the recent case of Beecher v. State, 1971, 288 Ala. ___, 256 So.2d 154, this court said:
Seals v. Wiman, supra, arose out of a conviction of Seals in the Circuit Court of Mobile County of the crime of rape. His conviction was affirmed by this court. Seals v. State, 271 Ala. 142, 122 So.2d 513. A petition for leave to file in the trial court a petition for writ of error coram nobis was denied by this court on the ground that Seals, a negro, by not timely attacking the composition of the jury in the trial court, had waived his right to assert that members of his race had been systematically excluded from the grand and petit jury. Certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court of the United States, without prejudice to an application for a writ of habeas corpus in the appropriate United States District Court. Seals v. State of Alabama, 366 U.S. 954, 81 S.Ct. 1909, 6 L.Ed.2d 1246. Application was then made to a federal district court pursuant to the suggestion of the Supreme Court of the United States, but the application for writ of habeas corpus was denied.
In Ex parte Howard, supra, we in effect recognized that our holdings in the cases last cited above had been vitiated by the Harpole Case and the Wiman Case. In Seals v. State, supra, we were confronted with a petition for leave to file in the trial court a petition for writ of error coram nobis by Seals, a Negro, whose conviction of rape had been affirmed by this court. — Seals v. State, 271 Ala. 142, 122 So.2d 513. The right to file the petition was grounded on averments to the effect that Negroes had been systematically excluded from the grand jury which indicted Seals and the petit jury which tried him. We denied the petition on the ground that no matter involving irregularities of either the grand jury or petit jury was presented in Seals' trial for rape.
But appellant argues that his constitutional rights under Sec. 6 were violated because he did not know that prosecutrix and Dr. Murchison were watching and listening when he was talking. This question was recently settled by us in Seals v. State, 271 Ala. 142, 122 So.2d 513. In that case, we committed ourselves to the holding that a defendant may be required to stand in a certain place where he can be observed and be required to talk so that his voice can be heard by his alleged victim when he is not aware that he is being observed or listened to.
Willie Seals, Jr., was convicted in the Circuit Court of Mobile County, Alabama, of the offense of rape. He is a Negro and his victim was a white woman. On appeal to this court, Seals' conviction was affirmed, ante, p. 142, 122 So.2d 513. The indictment against Seals was returned by the grand jury of Mobile County on October 24, 1958. He entered a plea of not guilty and was tried by a jury, which, on December 4, 1958, returned a verdict of guilty as charged and fixed his punishment at death.
The South Carolina and Texas cases specifically condemn this practice. Cf. Seals v. State, post p. 142, 122 So.2d 513. The deputy sheriff who had the defendant in custody at the time the defendant repeated the words said that after talking to the defendant "for some time" he, the deputy sheriff, "asked him to repeat some things after me."