Ex Parte Julius

This is a death penalty case. Certiorari was granted to determine whether the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in upholding a capital murder conviction and sentence of death based upon the court's denomination of an incorrect statement within the oral charge as harmless error.

Arthur James Julius was indicted under Alabama's 1975 death penalty statute, Code 1975, §§ 13-11-1 through-9,1 for the January 29, 1978, capital murder of his cousin, Susie Bell Sanders, who was strangled to death after being raped and subjected to acts of grotesque sexual abuse.

The indictment alleged the following…