12 Ga. App. 566 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1913
Pink Hegwood and Homer Hegwood were jointly indicted for murder, and, on separate trials, Pink Hegwood was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, and his codefendant of murder, with recommendation to life imprisonment. Pink Hegwood filed a motion for a new trial, which was overruled, and he brings error. The view that this court takes of the one controlling question in the ease makes it unnecessary to consider any of the other grounds contained in the motion for a new trial; and this question is whether, under the evidence and the statement of the accused, made to the jury, there is any theory upon which the verdict of voluntary manslaughter can be supported. The trial judge, in his order overruling the motion for a new trial; states, that he charged the law of voluntary manslaughter because there was some evidence that Pink Hegwood and the decedent had a difference over which they quarreled, and about which they began a fight, which was subsequently joined in by Homer Hegwood; that there was ap
This court is not concerned with the soundness of the theory of voluntary manslaughter as thus announced in the two cases above cited, but, assuming the correctness of the doctrine thus laid down, it is only interested in determining whether this legal doctrine of voluntary manslaughter is applicable to any theory deducible from the evidence or from the statement of the accused. If so applicable, the verdict should stand; if not applicable, the verdict must be set aside. We have read the brief of evidence over very carefully several times, and we are utterly unable to deduce therefrom any circumstance or theory in support of the statement by the learned judge, in his order overruling the motion for a new trial,. referred to above, that there is evidence—even a scintilla of evidence—in support of the theory' of mutual combat between the decedent and Pink Hegwood, or between the decedent and the other defendant, Homer Hegwood; nor are we able to concur in the view of the trial judge that there was evidence tending to prove that Homer Hegwood was'the. perpetrator, of the killing, with felonious intent, and that Pink, although participating, aiding and abetting Homer, nevertheless did so without a participation in Homer’s felonious intent, and without himself intending to kill, and without knowledge that a deadly weapon was being used in a manner likely to produce death; and that the jury might be authorized to infer, from the evidence, that Pink’s oply intent was to commit the offense of assault, or assault and battery. The evidence for the State demands the conclusion that Pink Hegwood was the original aggressor; that he struck the decedent repeatedly over the head with a pistol; that he frequently declared while doing so that he intended to kill the decedent; that his brutal conduct had continued for several minutes before his brother Homer joined in the assault; that, after Homer joined in the assault, Pink continued his individual assault on. the decedent; that he saw his •brother Homer strike and assault the decedent (already in a dying condition) with a bottle, and participated with his brother in striking the decedent with rocks, and that together, acting in
As before stated, the evidence for the State demanded a verdict of murder against both of the defendants. The statement of the defendant Pink Hegwood (the plaintiff in error) is in direct conflict with the evidence for the State. He denies that any difficulty took place between him and his brother Homer and the decedent, ai).d says that neither he nor his brother, contributed in any manner to the homicide, but that it occurred either from heart failure, superinduced by- excessive use of alcohol, or by the criminal conduct of the son of the decedent. The jury did not believe this statement, and they must have entertained a reasonable doubt as to the truth of the evidence for the State. In this exigency the jury had no right to find any compromise verdict; nor was the trial judge authorized to suggest such character of verdict by his charge, unless such a verdict was reasonably deducible from the evidence and the law applicable thereto, or from the statement of the accused. The jury being without legal right to compromise, if they believed neither the evidence for the State nor the statement of the accused, the mental uncertainty thus produced might have resulted either in an acquittal or a mistrial; and the accused was entitled to either solution of this situation. In a juridie sense, this court can not say that under the evidence and the statement a verdict of guilty was demanded.
Neither has this court authority to permit this verdict to stand upon the idea that substantial justice has been done. The theory of substantial justice is a mere abstraction. It can have no place in a court whose constitutional limitation is to correct ’“errors .of law.” Fallible and finite human conception makes it impossible to accept this abstraction as a safe rule of judicial conduct. Frequently men differ as to what constitutes substantial justice. Legal justice—that is, justice under well-settled and fixed rules, of law— is the only safe course to pursue; and this character of justice should be the goal of judicial research and declaration. In determining what are errors of law, this court is bound primarily by the decisions fo the Supreme Court of this State as binding precedents. The Supreme Court has repeatedly decided that where the offense of voluntary manslaughter was not involved, and