50 S.E.2d 330 | Ga. | 1948
1. The evidence was sufficient to authorize the verdict.
2. Where, in a criminal case, the defense of insanity at the time of the commission of the act is interposed, it is proper for the court to charge that the burden is upon the accused to establish his insanity to the reasonable satisfaction of the jury.
3. The part of the charge upon delusional insanity wherein the court used the expression, "connected with the criminal act," when considered with the charge as a whole, was not an expression of opinion that the homicide was a criminal act.
4. Neither of the other grounds of the amended motion requires the grant of a new trial.
The evidence showed: About a week before the homicide at their home in Phenix City, Alabama, he made an assault upon his wife with an ice pick, and following the assault their daughter took her mother and children to the daughter's home in Columbus, Georgia, where she was at the time of the homicide. On the morning of the homicide, and about two hours prior thereto, the accused purchased a pistol. He went to the home of his daughter where his wife was staying. When he arrived his wife was *511 bathing her baby. He asked her, "What about the children?" She said, "The children are all right." He said, "Are you going to look after the children?" She said, "Yes, I am going to see after them; I want you to leave us alone." He said, "Are you going to live with me any more?" She said, "No, I have tried you too many times, and I wish you would go on and leave me alone." He said, "Damn you, you won't live with anybody else, so take this." He then shot her and subsequently shot her several more times in her attempt to avoid him.
Under the plea of not guilty, the sole defense interposed by the accused was insanity. Both expert and non-expert testimony of insanity was presented. The State also produced testimony that the accused was sane. 1. Upon the question of sanity or insanity, which was the sole defense interposed by the accused, there being evidence from which the jury could find either for or against the accused on this issue, the trial judge did not err in overruling the motion for new trial upon the general grounds.
2. Error is alleged on the following portion of the charge: "Where the issue of insanity is involved, the burden is on the defendant to show to the reasonable satisfaction of the jury that at the time of the alleged commission of the act charged against him he was insane, or was laboring under a delusion that deprived him of his will and deprived him of the power to resist. Whether or not that has been done either by evidence from the State or established by evidence from the defendant, or both, is a question to be determined by you, the jury." It is insisted that the burden placed upon the accused to establish his insanity "to the reasonable satisfaction of the jury" set a higher degree of proof and placed a greater burden on him than the law required. It is insisted that the court should have charged that the burden to prove insanity could be established by "a preponderance of the evidence."
There is some confusion in the previous decisions of this court as to the proper charge of the court to fix the burden of proof *512
upon a defendant in a criminal case to establish insanity. The trouble has been in determining which of the following phrases defines the proper measure of proof: "To a reasonable certainty."Beck v. State,
We shall confine our ruling to the sole question here presented, whether the court erred in charging the jury that the burden was on the defendant to establish his insanity to the reasonable satisfaction of the jury. To establish error in so charging, the accused relies upon Polk v. State,
We have been unable to find any case in which the court has held that it was error to charge that it was the duty of the defendant to establish insanity to the reasonable satisfaction of the jury, but on the other hand, this identical phrase has been directly passed on and approved in Hobbs v. State,
It is well to note that the burden placed upon an accused to establish an alibi, is to "the reasonable satisfaction of the jury." We can see no reason why the same degree of proof should not be required to establish insanity. As was said in Thompson
v. State,
3. It is insisted that the court erred in charging the jury as follows: "Now then, if you decide that this man was under a delusion of some kind, that particular delusion has got to relate and be connected with his act, has got to be related to and connected with his act before he would be excusable for taking the life of a fellow creature, and if it was not connected, even though he had a delusion of some kind, that would not apply. If it was connected and you believe that he had a delusion and it was actually connected with the criminal act, then, gentlemen of the jury, that would be a question for you to decide." The error alleged to have been committed was that by the use of the *514 phrase, "connected with the criminal act," the charge assumed that the homicide was a criminal act and that a crime had been committed.
By the plea of not guilty the accused put in issue all the material allegations in the indictment, including the fact of the homicide and also his mental ability to form the intent to commit a crime. If the charge be construed as an expression of opinion by the trial judge that the homicide was in fact a crime, it would be error. Code, § 81-1104; Minor v. State,
4. Other grounds of the amended motion, not covered by the rulings here made, have been examined and present no question that would require the grant of a new trial.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justicesconcur. *515