116 Ga. 605 | Ga. | 1902
Sion Justice was put on ■ trial in the city court of Dublin, under an accusation charging him with a misdemeanor. The specific allegation is, that the accused did “ unlawfully deprive of necessary sustenance one William Jordan Justice, a child five and a half years old, the said William Jordan Justice being ill and the said Sion Justice failing and refusing to provide said child with necessary sustenance, the said Sion Justice being the father of said child.” The trial resulted in a verdict of guilty, and the defendant made a motion for a new trial, which being overruled, he excepted. Each ground set out in the motion presents sufficient cause for. the grant of a new trial. The Penal Code, § 708, declares that “whoever shall torture, torment, deprive of necessary sustenance, mutilate, cruelly, unreasonably and maliciously beat or ill-treat any child,” etc., shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. The theory under which the accused was prosecuted in this case was that he was guilty of depriving his minor child of necessary sustenance, because, on account of a religious belief, he refused to procure medicine to be administered to any of his children when they were sick. It was not
Judgment reversed.