House v. State

The respondent, Ronnie Gene House, was indicted under Code 1975, § 13-1-42, for unlawfully assaulting Edward Wilburn with a deadly weapon "at which time the said Edward Wilburn was engaged in the active discharge of his lawful duty or duties as a Deputy Sheriff for Morgan County, Alabama." The jury convicted him "as charged" and the court set the punishment at fifteen (15) years' imprisonment. On March 27, 1979, the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and rendered appellant's conviction, holding that the fact that Edward Wilburn was actually a jailer and not a deputy sheriff constituted a…