18 Ga. 460 | Ga. | 1855
By the Court.
delivering the opinion.
Was it error in the Court to rule out the testimony of Charles W. Rawson?
The defendant proposed to prove, by this witness, a fight between the prosecutor and himself, two years before the alleged crime was committed, the prisoner’s Counsel announcing that he expected to connect the two transactions, by repeated
The evidence, as to the intermediate threats and acts of violence, all came out; and it utterly fails to link the two fights together. On the contrary, it establishes the fact, that Saucer had stood in the relation of employer and friend to Hatcher, and done him kindnesses.
Perhaps .the Court was not sufficiently guarded in the remarks made concerning the taking down of the testimony, if, indeed, they were made. They are not in the bill of exceptions, proper, but appear, by way of recital, in one of the grounds taken for a new trial. Whether, the motion being over-ruled, the Judge is to be understood as- indorsing the truthfulness of all the facts assumed in the motion for a new trial, is somewhat questionable.
Has any injury resulted to the party in this case ? It is conceded, that all the material proof was taken down, and is-now in the brief of testimony; and whether taken down or not, all of the evidence went to the Jury. We are not prepared to admit, that the omission to take down the proof,, would be a good ground for a new trial. More could not be asked by the prisoner, than a fair and impartial trial upon all the facts. That he has had.
We do not agree with defendant’s Counsel, in denominating his effort as an attempt to “ correct” the Court. It was neither more nor less than an attempt to get the Court to re-iter
The ground, as to the disqualification of two of the Jurors, Greer and Hampton, is abandoned; and need not, therefore, be considered.
In the first place, we say that this clerical error might have been corrected by the minutes of the Court or other-wise. Secondly, that men in this country are frequently just as well known by their initials, as any other way. The practice is somewhat different in England. A man is usually called, there, by his whole name — as, James Sheridan Knowles. And this has always been so. And hence, the Common Law rule, as to names, has always -been more stringent than in this country. But, thirdly, this being a motion in arrest of judgment, and not affecting the real merits of the offence charged in the indictment, comes too late. “ All exceptions which go merely to the form of an indictment, shall be made before trial; and no motion, in arrest of judgment, shall be sustained for any matter not affecting the real merits of the offence charged in such indictment.” (Cobb’s Digest, 833.) What a world of meaning in this little section! Arid yet, it has lain almost dormant in the,Penal Code, for nearly twenty years! It is second only, in importance, to the 1st section of the same division, which declares, that every indictment shall be deemed sufficiently technical and correct, which states the offence so plainly that its nature may easily understood by the Jury, and which was fully applied, for the first time, in Studstill’s ease, in 7 Ga. R. What a cloud of technical cobwebs and quibbling distinctions have-been swept away by these two broad enactments!
The other two grounds, that the verdict was contrary to-