4 Ga. App. 167 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1908
Lead Opinion
The plaintiff in error was indicted for the offense of assault with intent to murder, and was convicted of the offense of assault. His motion for a new trial being overruled, he brings his case here. The evidence, in brief, shows that the defendant.
The case of Crumbley v. State, 61 Ga. 582, is relied upon by the solicitor-general. In that case Judge Bleckley, speaking, for the court, says, “To shoot at another with a gun, at a distance of twenty steps, is an assault, even if the gun be loaded with powder only.”' But in that case the prosecutor was shot at, and the distance was only twenty steps, and it was not pretended that the prosecutor knew with what the gun was charged, or for what purpose it was. presented at him and fired. This decision is interpreted by Judge Bleckley in the case of Clark v. State, 84 Ga. 577 (10 S. E. 1094). “We think the true law of powder guns is this, that if they be discharged without legal excuse at another who is within the distance to which they will carry their load or any part of it, the offense is committed; but what that distance is, is a question of fact for the jury;” and (p. 578) that “there was no purpose, in Crumbley v. State, . . to treat it otherwise, the essential matter in that case, under the finding of the jury, being only as to a mere assault j and that the facts proved constituted an assault there could be ne doubt.” We do not think that the learned jurist meant to.hold that to shoot in'the direction of a person without any intention to hit him, and beyond the possible range of the gun, could amount to an assault. To so hold would be contrary to every' definition of such an offense; for to constitute the offense, there must of necessity exist the purpose, coupled with the attempt to inflict bodily •injury. We think there is material difference in shooting at another and shooting in the direction of another. The former, of course, includes the latter; but the latter does not necessarily include the former. To shoot at, in a criminal sense, necessarily implies a sufficient nearness to the person shot at /to render the act actually or apparently dangerous; but to shoot in the direction of a person conveys no such definite idea of the intervening space. We
Concurrence Opinion
concurring specially. I agree to the reversal, on the ground stated in the second headnote; but I think that fright is such bodily harm that to shoot in the general direction of a person, with intent to “bluff or scare” him, is an assault.