75 Ga. 825 | Ga. | 1885
The defendant was tried and found guilty on an indictment charging him with breaking and entering the dwelling-house of the prosecutor with intent to take, steal and carry away the personal goods therein found. He moved for a new trial, on various grounds, and the motion was overruled; whereupon he alleged error and brought the case to this court.
1. There is nothing in thé three first grounds of the motion. Under the law and the evidence in the case, the verdict is well supported; indeed, it would seem to have been demanded, unless the jury saw proper to believe the defendant’s statement in preference to the sworn testimony, which we think they very properly declined to do.
2. The fourth and fifth grounds of the motion may be considered together, and they allege that there was error in charging the jury that, “ if the defendant broke and entered the room ” of the prosecutor (in the Rankin House, where the prosecutor was employed as a servant, and which he occupied jointly with another) “ for the purpose of committing a felony or larceny, he is guilty of burglary.” The objections urged in argument to this charge, though nota plainly specified,” as the law requres, Code, §4251, either in the motion for a new trial, or the bill of exceptions, founded on the judgment refusing the same, are the following:
(i.) That the dwelling-house broken and entered was a room for servants in a public inn, and was not a hired room, and that the prosecutor occupied it as a servant or waiter at said inn.
(2.) The prosecutor occupied the room jointly with another servant, and if a dwelling at all, it was the dwelling of both, and not of the prosecutor alone
That the room was occupied by another, as well as the prosecutor, does not, in legal contemplation, make it any less the dwelling of the prosecutor. All that the law required was that the indictment should identify the dwelling broken and entered with burglarious intent, and that it should show that it was not the dwelling of the party so breaking and entering, but that it was occupied by the prosecutor. Goode’s case, 70 Ga., 752.
3. The remaining grounds of the motion have no merit. The defendant’s counsel consented that the statement, as to the confessions of the defendant, might be made in the presence of the jury, and when they were ruled out by the court, he further stated that he did not ask to rule out any facts discovered in consequence of the confessions. Under these circumstances, and in dealing with the motion to rule out the confessions, we are unable to perceive the least impropriety in the remarks made by the judge, to which exception is taken, or what influence they could have had in diverting the attention of the jury from the issues before them, or in misleading them as to such portions of the testimony as they were at liberty to consider. “ I under
It is established law, that although a confession obtained by means of promises or threats cannot be received, yet if, in consequence of that confession, certain facts tending to establish the guilt of the prisoner are made known, evidence of the facts may be received, together with so much of the confession as relates strictly to the facts discovered by it. Roscoe’s Cr. Ev., 2d ed., 47; 1 Greenleaf’s Ev., 9th ed., §231; 1 Bishop’s Cr. Proc., §1242; Grady vs. The State, 11 Ga., 253; Whaley vs. The State, Ib., 123; Berry vs. The State, 10 Id., 511, 519.
Judgment affirmed.