15 S.E.2d 484 | Ga. | 1941
The court did not err in overruling the motion for new trial.
It is further contended, in substance, that the judge should at *375
least have charged the jury that the unnatural conduct of the deceased with the defendant's wife and her actions at the time of the killing were sufficient to have engendered passion on the part of the defendant and to reduce the crime to voluntary manslaughter. In this connection it appears that after defining to the jury the offense of voluntary manslaughter in the words of the Code, § 26-1007, the judge instructed them as follows: "The law does not specifically declare what circumstances will exclude all idea of deliberation or malice, but furnishes a standard and leaves it to the jury to make the comparison and to determine whether or not the special facts of the case come up to that standard; and should the jury find that the attendant facts and circumstances leading up to the alleged homicide were such as to justify the existence of that sudden, violent impulse of passion supposed to be irresistible, and exclude all idea of deliberation of malice, either express or implied, then the defendant would not be guilty of any offense greater than voluntary manslaughter." This charge clearly gave the jury the right to consider all of the facts and circumstances, including those brought out solely in the defendant's statement, in determining whether there would have been sufficient justification for the excitement of passion as to reduce the crime to voluntary manslaughter. It was not error to omit an attempt to apply this principle to the facts of the case. See Short v. State,
Counsel does not argue any of the remaining grounds of the motion, although a general insistence is made as to all of the grounds. We have examined all of them, and find them without merit and not of a character requiring discussion. The evidence supported the verdict, and the judge did not err in overruling the motion for new trial.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur. *376