156 Ga. 586 | Ga. | 1923
The grand jury of Washington County indicted J. B. Miller, Gainer Adkins, Ella Adkins, Sim Adkins, and John Henry Tarver for the crime of murder. In the present case Gainer Adkins alone was on trial; and the jury returned a verdict of guilty, with a recommendation that he be imprisoned in the penitentiary for life, and he was sentenced 'accordingly. The defendant made a motion for a new trial, on the usual general grounds, which was overruled, and he excepted.
The evidence in the case was purely circumstantial, and does not, in our opinion, come up to the rule which requires in such cases that the proved facts must not only be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt but must exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused. Penal Code (1910), § 1010. The evidence tends to show that on May 18, 1933, a young white woman, who was the rural route mail carrier from Davisboro, was foully murdered at a place on the public road, while she was alone in the Ford car in which she was conveying the mail, and that she was shot to death with a shotgun by a negro boy, who, either alone or with the aid of others, dragged her body from the car across
The evidence relied on by the State to connect the plaintiff in error with the perpetration of the crime was substantially as follows : There were tracks leading from the home of the plaintiff in error, which was from a half to three fourths of a mile from the scene of the homicide, down to a branch which was in the edge of a field cultivated by the plaintiff in error and which was about a hundred yards from his house. These tracks were shown to be those of the plaintiff in error, and he was seen going from his house towards the branch on the morning of the homicide, which occurred about 9:30 a. m. The same tracks came back from the branch to the house; but there is no evidence of any tracks leading from the branch to the scene of the killing, although the tracks led in that general direction. In his statement the plaintiff in
The plaintiff in error in his statement denied knowing anything at all about the killing. He stated that the boy (Charlie Adkins, his son) had taken his gun without his knowledge or consent; that the boy had asked him earlier in the morning to let him go rabbit-hunting, and he had consented for him to go with his dog, and he was very much shocked when some one came and said that the automobile was the ear of the “ mail-riding woman ” who had been murdered; that early in the morning, it being cool, he had gone down to the swamp and woods about a hundred 'yards from his house to get some lightwood to put on the fire, which he did get and bring back to the house and chopped it up and carried it in the house and put some of it on the fire. From a careful review of all the evidence we feel constained to hold that it is insufficient to connect the plaintiff in error with the crime, and to authorize a verdict of guilty. The evidence at most only tends to raise a suspicion of guilt of the plaintiff in error, and is not sufficient to support a conviction of the crime of murder for which he stands charged. See Silvey v. State, 111 Ga. 849 (36 S. E. 608); Ballew v. State, 99 Ga. 195 (24 S. E. 452). Where a conviction depends entirely upon circumstantial evidence, as in this ease, the evidence must be of such character as to exelue every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused; and in this case the evidence does not come up to this rule. Penal Code (1910), § 1010. And see Patton v. State, 117 Ga. 230, 237 (43 S. E. 533), where the court cited the following cases: Wells v. State, 97 Ga. 210 (4) (22 S. E. 958); King v. State, 84 Ga. 524 (10 S. E. 721) ; Cummings v. State, 110 Ga. 293 (35 S. E. 117); Johnson v. State, 61 Ga. 305 (5); McDaniel v. State, 53 Ga. 253; Shannon v. State, 57 Ga. 482; Laws v. State, 114 Ga. 10 (39 S. E. 883); Johnson v. State, 73 Ga. 107.
The court erred in refusing a new trial.
Judgment ■reversed.