| Ga. | Jul 15, 1874
1. In a case of this kind the feelings of the prisoner towards the owner of the property, and especially anything like threats that such owner would suffer a wrong, are certainly not only not irrelevant to the issue, but material evidence. If a crime is committed in secret, in any community, the mind of every man reverts to the enemies of the injured person; and though such enmity is no evidence of crime, yet it may form one of the circumstances to be taken into account.
2. The charge given by the judge on the subject of the nature of the corroboration, that it must consist of some circumstance going to connect the prisoner with the crime committed, comes fully up to the rule laid down by the majority of this court in the case of Childers vs. The State, 52 Georgia, 106, and is, indeed, more precisely in accord with it than is the request that he refused. A very just criticism might be made of the language used in the refused request. The words “in that part of the story which fixes the crime on the prisoner,” might lead the jury to suppose that the proof of the other witnesses must be of some special fact testified to by the prisoner. But the true rule is, that the circumstances of corroboration must be such as themselves tend to fix the crime on the prisoner, though the accomplice may not have mentioned the fact at all. The charge given was as much on this subject as the prisoner was entitled to. The judge was not required to repeat it. If he distinctly and clearly gave the law upon the point, his duty was discharged. The repetition of it, in another shape, is only a waste of time and a confusion, instead of making the matter clearer. When is the judge to stop? Is he to repeat, over and over again, the same principle, in every shape in which ingenuity can throw the idea? We think not. The intent of the statute is to secure a substantial communication by the judge to the jury of such rules of law pertinent to the cause as the counsel of the accused may desire, and when that is done, not only is the law obeyed, but more, is. a wrong both to the state and the accused.
3. Nor is there error in the other charges. We doubt if there is ever a case where one has a right to demand that the judge shall tell a jury that a certain thing, if proven, is a circumstance from which the jury should distrust a wit
4. Nor was there error in the refusal to charge, under the circumstances, as requested, in reference to what the jury should do if they thought the circumstance mentioned by the accomplice, as to himself and the accused standing in the road, was fixed up to corroborate Haisten. In the first place, we do not see any ground for such a charge. Why should the jury think this. Is there anything to indicate it? And suppose the jury did think this particular fact was fixed up, but that the balance of his story was true? Had this fact not been stated would not Haisten’s testimony confirm and corroborate the statement of the witness? If the' witness had only stated that he and the Ham macks had set fire to the houses, would not Haisten’s story, that he saw the Ham macks, as he says he saw them, be a circumstance of corroboration, tending to fix the crime on the accused, even though Thomas had not put the parties at the particular spot at the time? The rule, as laid down in Childer’s case, is that the corrobo
5. We think the evidence in these cases fully justifies the verdict. It is only a charitable man who would hesitate much to convict on Haisten’s testimony, with the additional fact of ill-feeling by.these persons against Mrs. Thomas. If Haisten was not mistaken, the presence of these men at that point, at that time of night, and their leaving as they did, is almost inexplicable, except upon the hypothesis of their guilt, and if to this be added the positive testimony of the accomplice — bad as he is — we can see very well how a jury of honest men might- fairly conclude the defendants to be guilty.
Judgment affirmed.