Smiley v. State

This is a consolidated appeal of two cases between the same parties, one in which defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to imprisonment for thirty years, the other in which he was convicted of arson in the first degree and sentenced to imprisonment for ten years. The cases were consolidated for trial on motion of defendant.

The cases arose out of the same incident and surrounding circumstances as Johnny Lee Scruggs, alias, Ala.Cr.App. (2 Div. 246, Ms. Oct. 16, 1979), in which a conviction of murder in the first degree was affirmed.

In Scruggs, supra, and in the…