Ingram v. StateIngram v. State
- Reporters:
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- Before:
- Wyatt
Rosa Lee Ingram, Charlie Ingram, Wallace Ingram, and Sammie Lee Ingram were jointly indicted for murder, the indictment
The State‘s evidence was as follows: Mrs. Irene Stratford, wife of the deceased, testified that the deceased on the day of his death weighed 130 pounds, his age was sixty-six, and “he was not strong, he was weak;” that she and her husband lived on Mr. C. M. Dillinger‘s place in Schley County, and her husband was a share cropper for Dillinger, as were the four defendants, who lived on the same place on a farm joining the farm on which the deceased resided; that the dwelling house in which the Ingrams lived was located in Sumter County; that on the morning of November 4, 1947, she saw some mules in her husband‘s filed; that she saw a gray mule, belonging to the Ingrams, in a cornfield south of the house; that she saw her husband come to the house, get a rifle, and leave with the rifle, going towards the cornfield; that she never again saw her husband alive; that the last time she saw her husband alive he was going with the rifle around a small tool house.
The witness then identified certain photographs. The first (introduced by the State as Exhibit 1) showed a small wooden house with a dirt road leading by the house. About fifty or seventy-five feet from the house, there was shown a hat lying in one rut and a satchel lying in the other rut of the road. She testified that this house, shown in the photograph, was the tool house around which she last saw her husband walking alive; that she later found her husband‘s body near the tool house, and the hat and satchel in the photograph represented where her husband‘s body was lying on its back with the head east and the feet west. The witness further testified that when her husband left with a rifle he did not say anything, “only said he was
Bob Carswell, after recounting that he heard a report that the deceased was dead and went to look for the body, testified: “He was laying there across the road. . . That body was in Schley County laying on its back; his head was laying to the east and his feet to the west. He had his right arm stretched out and the blood had run down clear to his hands. His head was right in the edge of the weeds. He was really dead. After I saw he was dead I did not make any examination of the premises around there. I noticed where they scuffled around in the edge of the cotton patch; there were shoe tracks and some rubber boot tracks there. The way I could tell that track from the others was because it was ridged on the bottom. Those other tracks I saw looked like shoe tracks. I could not tell whether men‘s tracks or women‘s tracks; they were all around there where that took place.”
S.E. McGowan Jr., an embalmer, testified that he examined
Clark Williamson testified (after identifying a picture showing the location of the body and a picture of the body) that the pictures represented where the body lay when he arrived, and the picture of the back of the deceased‘s head showed wounds similar to the wounds he saw. He then testified: “When I went out there and saw that body, I saw something out there a few feet from where the body lay, southwest from where the body was laying about fifty or seventy-five feet in this cotton patch, somebody had either been sitting down or kneeling down or wallowing around there. . . Out here it looked like somebody had been sitting down or wallowing around.” The witness further testified that he talked to the defendants separately, and they made statements to him which were freely and voluntarily given. He testified: “Rosa Lee told me she took that gun away from Mr. Stratford and hit him over the head. She did not tell me why. She said she hit him over the head and knocked him down, and he tried to get up, and she knocked him down again. That is about all she said. She talked like she hit him and knocked him down, and he tried to get up, and she knocked him back down. She did not say whether anybody else hit him or not. Charlie and Wallace said they did not do anything. I took them in the presence of their mother then. They backed their mother up there — that all the licks that were passed were two licks that Rosa Lee herself hit him with the rifle. The hammer was not mentioned. Nobody said anything about who struck him with the hoe. . . Wallace and Charlie said they came to see what the trouble was, but said they did nothing. Sammie Lee did not know anything either. He did not do anything. I would judge that Mr. Stratford had very little blood in him when I got there. Where his head was lying there is a little bit down grade in that trench and blood had puddled and run down in the direction of his little house.”
R. N. Chapman, Coroner of Schley County, testified that he went to the scene of the homicide and made an investigation; that he found the body of the deceased lying in a field road leading from the Stratford house to the Ingram house; that the body was a good quarter of a mile from the Ingram house. He further testified: “John Ethron Stratford had on a pair of rubber boots. I made some examination of the ground and premises around where that body lay. I did not find a knife, gun, stick, pistol, or any weapon laying by the body of Mr. Stratford. . . I saw some tracks just to the right going from where the dead body was lying, maybe two cotton rows from where the man‘s body was lying, and I noticed from the signs of the tracks one of them was the rubber boot that the man had on. It was west of where the body was. . . I saw some blood there; there was blood running from where the dead body was off back that way, I would call it north some four or five feet. . . After I examined the body I then went towards the Ingram house and there was tracks of blood I would say something like two hundred yards from where the dead body was, going in the direction of the Ingram home. The blood was heavier by the body and the farther away I got the lighter it got on the ground. . . I would say around fifteen steps or something like that from where the dead body was, the ground was not messed up, only looked like somebody had been sitting on it. From what I saw there I would say it was some human sitting there on the grass.” The witness then testified that Rosa Lee Ingram made a free and voluntary statement, stating that she killed the deceased; that “she said she took the barrel of the gun and struck the man twice over the head.”
W. T. Beauchamp, of the Georgia Highway Patrol, testified that he, accompanied by Trooper Britt, made an investigation of the homicide; that they found the body in a little field road. The witness identified photographs numbered one to six, and testified as to their correctness, stating that he participated in making them. With reference to photograph No. 1 (Exhibit 1), he testified: “In this picture the bag represents the position of Mr. John Ethron Stratford‘s head and shoulders and my hat here represents where his feet were lying. Where I am standing there (about five feet from the location of the body) is where
L. S. Boyette, a physician who examined the body of the deceased, testified: “I saw several wounds on that body; on the left side of the head up here about the center in this region of the parietal bone there was a bruise about two inches in size. . . The wound I am talking about is entirely different to those shown in that picture No. 7. . . Right here is a laceration about two inches in length up above the temple in the hair and it goes down to the skull. Back here in this region where you see these three probes sticking in there, that circle is two inches in diameter, there is a probe sticking down through the skull here and one sticking through the skull here. This center one went down through the skin to the skull but did not go through, but these probes slipped down through the skull into the brain. I have had experience during the time I have been a practicing physician and surgeon to observe a lot of types of injuries such as those made with a hammer or hoe or rifle or other blunt instrument. From having observed those wounds I took that wound which does not appear in the photograph, which was on the left parietal bone of Mr. Stratford‘s head, to be made by a blunt
J. E. DeVane, Sheriff of Schley County, testified as to making an investigation, identified Exhibit No. 1 as representing the place where the body was found, and then testified: “I noticed the ground and conditions there. I saw the ground had been pawed up and scuffling apparently had been done there. After I saw that I noticed what kind of shoes Mr. John Ethron Stratford had on. He had on some rubber boots; those boots were ridged on the bottom. . . I saw some tracks out there by where that body was. I saw a number of tracks all around
The witness then testified that he questioned the defendants, and they freely and voluntarily made statements to him; that Rosa Lee Ingram stated that the deceased went to the cornfield where the Ingrams were pulling corn and told them to get the mules out of the cornfield; that the deceased stated he was
The witness then testified that Wallace Ingram made a statement on November 29, which was freely and voluntarily given without hope of reward or fear of injury. The witness testified: “Wallace said Mr. Stratford came in the cornfield on that morning of November 4 and told Rosa Lee to get the mules out of his corn or he was going to shoot the mules, and Wallace and Charlie went to get them out and Rosa Lee went to see about the pigs. I have that statement he made. He said Rosa Lee said Mr. Stratford cursed her, but Wallace did not hear any cursing, and Mr. Stratford went back to the house to get the rifle while they went to get the mules, and he come back to his field and met Rosa Lee about the edge of his cotton patch, and Wallace and Charlie had caught the mules, and Rosa Lee and Mr. Stratford got to fighting and she began to holler, and Charlie and Wallace come running back up there and said Sammie Lee had the gun, said he took it after Mr. Stratford dropped it on the ground, and said Mr. Stratford got away and run north towards his house, and Charlie and Wallace ran around him and
The witness then testified that on December 8, 1947, in the presence of the solicitor, Sheriff McArthur, Sammie Lee Ingram, and James Frank Ingram, he had a further conversation with Rosa Lee Ingram at Perry, Georgia, at night; that she made a free and voluntary statement. According to the witness, at that time she gave the following account of the homicide: “Rosa Lee first denied it and said she killed him, but finally admitted that Charlie and Wallace and Sammie Lee did help her hold him and hit him. When she told it wrong, Sammie Lee and James Frank told her she was telling it wrong. She said what James Frank and Sammie Lee said was true. They said they were over there pulling corn and Mr. Stratford came over there and told Rosa Lee they must go to get the mules out of his corn, and Rosa Lee and Charlie and Wallace went to get them and Mr. Stratford first went by to get his rifle, said he was going to kill the mules if they did not get them out, and he got his rifle and come back to his cornfield. And Rosa Lee came along the road
Sheriff Jack McArthur of Sumter County testified at length, corroborating all of the details of the statements of Sammie Lee Ingram and Rosa Lee Ingram as related in the testimony of Sheriff DeVane. The only slight differences in the statements were in the following details, as related by Sheriff McArthur. As to Sammie Lee Ingram‘s statement: “He said he gave the gun to Wallace and Wallace hit Mr. Stratford over the head with it, and in the meantime Charlie told Sammie to get the hoe out of the little house up there, and Charlie met him a piece of the way between there and the house and came back and hit Mr. Stratford with the hoe. Sammie said he got the hoe out of the tool house and he went on down there and hit Mr. Stratford twice with a claw hammer, and his mother hit Mr. Stratford one time with the hoe after he was down on the ground. He said Mr. Stratford was down when he hit him with
The three defendants made statements to the jury. Rosa Lee Ingram, after relating the details of the argument about the mules, and after stating that the deceased said, “I am going to kill the negroes this morning,” and after stating that he pointed the gun at her and cursed her, stated that the deceased hit her several times with the gun and with a knife. She stated that she took the gun away from the deceased, struck at him twice but only hit him once; that Wallace came up, took the gun “and hit Mr. Stratford and Mr. Stratford fell.” She denied that anybody else hit the deceased. She stated: “My children have told these men a lie. I did not hit that man with a hoe and I would not have let them hit him with no hoe. That hoe was at my house. That hoe was not left in the field at all because, when I got through with the hoes when we chopped cotton, I thought I carried all of the hoes to the house. That is just the way that was done. . . Some said I held Mr. Stratford, but how could I hold Mr. Stratford; he was a strong man, not a weak man. I did not think he ought to have said anything to me after he come to the field and told me, looked like that would have been enough, but when I come over there, Mr. Stratford come out on me with that gun and that is just the way that was; that is all I have to say.”
Sammie Lee Ingram stated: “Mamma asked him did he want to whip her, and he come on to the road and went to tussling,
Wallace Ingram made the following statement: “We were in the field pulling corn that morning, and he come in the field and told Mamma to get the damn mules out of his cornfield or he was going to kill them, and she told him he did not have to come over there raising sand, they were Mr. Dillinger‘s mules and not hers. And we went across the pepper patch to get the mules, and we went on up there and heard her hollering and went back where he was at, and I got the rifle laying on the ground and hit him one lick with it.”
The statement of facts comprehensively details the evidence in this case, and we shall not go into an extended discussion of it in this opinion. However, it is difficult, from the testimony alone, to fully comprehend the nature of the State‘s case, and some explanations appear in order.
A number of photographs, many times referred to by the witnesses, were introduced in evidence. These photographs, together with the testimony of witnesses, tended to show the following: The home of the defendants was located almost due south, and perhaps a half mile from, the home of the deceased. A dirt road led from the Ingram home to the Stratford home. On the east side of this road there was a field enclosed by a fence. On the west side there was an unenclosed cotton patch and a small tool house situated near the road in the cotton patch, and between the two homes. The scene of the first struggle, referred to in the testimony, was on or near this road. The second struggle referred to occurred further north on or near the road and nearer the Stratford home, about 141 steps from the scene of the first struggle. In the cotton patch, about 75 feet southwest of the scene of the last struggle and the location of the body of the deceased, there were physical signs indicating that someone had been sitting, lying down, or wallowing there;
The State‘s evidence tended to show two struggles or encounters, as above described. There was testimony as to tracks made by the deceased and tracks made by others in work shoes, indicating a struggle and that the deceased had then run to the point where the second struggle occurred; and that he had been pursued and overtaken by someone, as indicated by wide-spaced tracks. There was testimony showing signs of drops of blood leading to the body from a point about two hundred yards south of the location of the body.
Mainly the State‘s case rested upon incriminatory statements made by all three of the defendants and circumstantial evidence fully corroborating these statements. The State‘s evidence tended to show, and the jury were fully authorized to find, that after an argument about the mules, the deceased went to get his rifle, and the defendants went to get the stock out of the deceased‘s filed; that afterwards the deceased returned with his rifle, met the defendant Rosa Lee Ingram, and a quarrel ensued; that the deceased struck the defendant Rosa Lee Ingram and a fight followed, with Rosa Lee Ingram getting the gun away from the deceased; that the deceased broke away from Rosa Lee Ingram and started running toward his home; that Charlie and Wallace Ingram ran and headed off the deceased, who was unarmed; that the deceased, after running more than a hundred yards, turned and began running in the opposite direction, seeking to escape; that he was caught by Rosa Lee Ingram, who had pursued him, the other defendants came up, and all three of the defendants struck and beat the deceased, using a claw hammer, a hoe, and a rifle; that, during this last encounter, while the defendants were beating the deceased, one of the defendants had time to go about seventy-five feet and get a claw hammer and a hoe and return to the scene of the struggle, and these implements were used by the defendants in beating the deceased; that the mortal blow was struck the deceased at the scene of this last struggle, while he was unarmed and while he was prostrate on the ground.
Undoubtedly the jury were authorized to find that the defendants, after the deceased had completely desisted from all efforts
We might note that all the defendants made inculpatory statements. Whether the statements were plenary confessions is unnecessary to decide, for some of the statements made by the defendants were clearly of such an incriminating character as, when taken in connection with the other evidence in the case, to authorize the jury to find that all the defendants participated in a felonious homicide. And we might note that these statements were fully corroborated by other evidence, while the statements made by the defendants to the jury were irreconcilable with the physical evidence, including the evidence as to tracks and struggles as well as the evidence of at least five separate wounds on the head of the deceased.
The distinction between voluntary manslaughter and murder is clearly stated by our Code
In the instant case, whether the interval between the time when the first encounter occurred and the deceased freed himself and sought to flee and the second encounter, during which he was killed by a severe beating, was a sufficient cooling time to make the offense murder, was a question which the law placed exclusively upon the jury for determination. The law prescribes
We are constrained to hold that the jury were authorized to find that there was a sufficient cooling time for the voice of reason and humanity to be heard, and to attribute the slaying to deliberate revenge.
Whether or not the defendants acted with a common intent and purpose in a concerted action to make the attack upon the deceased, was a question for determination by the jury, and there was sufficient proof offered to authorize the jury to find such to be a fact. A conspiracy may be proved by conduct as well as by an express agreement; and it is unnecessary that any antecedent agreement or understanding between the alleged conspirators be shown. If the evidence shows, and in this case it was sufficient to do so, that the defendants acted with a common intent and purpose in the attack on the deceased, and that the things which were proved to have happened were within the scope of this common intent and purpose, this amounts to a conspiracy. Such being true, the act of one within the scope of the conspiracy and during its progress was the act of all. See Patterson v. State, 199 Ga. 773 (7) (35 S.E.2d 504); Simmons v. State, 196 Ga. 395 (26 S.E.2d 785); Screws v. State, 188 Ga. 678 (2) (4 S.E.2d 601); McCormick v. State, 176 Ga. 21 (2) (166 S.E. 762); Wells v. State, 72 Ga. App. 201 (1) (33 S.E.2d 563).
We are not unmindful of the principle of law, as embodied in our Code
While our conclusions in this case might have been different had the State‘s evidence shown one encounter, with the children of Rosa Lee Ingram coming to the aid and protection of their mother, and the killing then occurring while the parties were engaged in fighting, we are not called upon to decide this question. The evidence tending to show one encounter, the deceased desisting from further efforts to fight and attempting to flee, pursuit by the accused, and the subsequent overtaking of the deceased and the infliction of mortal blows by the accused in a second encounter, the jury were confronted with this proposition: the accused would be guilty of murder or voluntary manslaughter as the jury might find the homicide to have been committed from motives of revenge or as the result of passion.
In passing on the general grounds of a motion for new trial, this court passes not on the weight but on the sufficiency of the evidence. It is our duty to determine whether the verdict as rendered can be sustained under any reasonable view taken of the proofs submitted to the jury. We are not called upon to say whether, had we been in the place of the jury, we might have found the accused guilty of a lesser offense. It was the province of the jury, and theirs alone, to put their appraisal upon the proofs submitted to them. Accordingly, the judgment must be
Affirmed. Jenkins, Chief Justice, Duckworth, Presiding Justice, Atkinson, Head, and Candler, Justices, and Judge Lilly concur.