163 Ga. 43 | Ga. | 1926
(After stating the foregoing facts.) There were witnesses other than these referred to in the statement of facts, and certain portions of their testimony will be referred to; but it is not necessary to make a lengthy statement of the evidence given by these witnesses for the State. Further reference will also be made to the statement of the prisoner, as parts of his statement are material to the decision of a most vital question in the ease.
The ruling made in the first headnote need not be elaborated.
One ground of the motion for new trial complains of the refusal of the court to order that the jury be purged “as to relationship” to E. H. Dorminey, sheriff, J. B. Roberts, deputy sheriff, and J. W. Scarbrough, a constable, inasmuch as these officers “went to the table where the solicitor-general was seated and began to confer with reference to the jurors to be taken.” The court’s attention was called by movant to the fact; and it was insisted that if these officers were to assist the State in striking the jury, they had become voluntary prosecutors, and the jury should be purged. Thereupon Roberts, the deputy sheriff, and Dorminey, the sheriff, were examined as to the part they had taken in striking the jury. The deputy sheriff testified: “I am purposing to take a part in the striking of this jury. Mr. Wall asked me awhile ago to help him strike the jury; and it is my purpose to give him what assistance I can, to sit with, him at the table there and help strike the jury in this ease. I haven’t taken any interest in the prosecution in the way of getting witnesses, •or anything of that kind; have not discussed with any witness the question of taking a warrant against the defendant’s brother.
We do not think the court erred in holding that jurors related to either of the officers, under the facts stated above, were not disqualified. It does not appear very distinctly just what aid or assistance was given by these officers to the solicitor-general. This assistance had not been rendered before the jurors had been summoned and the panels had been selected. We assume that the solicitor-general, counsel for the State, called these officers to inquire about certain members of the jury, their relationship, the places of their residence in the county, perhaps, and many other facts which he desired to know in order to intelligently strike the jury. Questions similar to the one here raised have been decided by this court and the Court of Appeals. In Caswell v. State, 27 Ga. App. 76 (107 S. E. 560), it was said: “One who is closely related to persons who assist the solicitor-general in striking a jury in a criminal case is not incompetent, for that reason, to sit as a juror in that case. Atkinson v. State, 112 Ga. 411 (37 S. E. 747); Griffin v. State, 18 Ga. App. 402 (4), 404 (89 S. E. 625); Williams v. State, 23 Ga. App. 518 (98 S. E. 557).”
The ruling made in the 3d headnote need not be elaborated.
Error is assigned upon the refusal of a written request to charge the jury, duly tendered to the court, as follows: “If you find from the evidence, statement of the defendant and the facts of this case, or from either, that at the time the alleged offense was committed the defendant was laboring under a delusion that his wife was unfaithful to him, and that this delusion had undermined his reason, and that at the time of said offense, because of such delusion, the defendant was unable, because of his mental condition, to control his will and know what he was doing, then and in that event you should acquit the defendant.” We are of the opinion that the court did not err in refusing to give this in charge. We do not think it was authorized by the evidence or by the statement of the accused. We do not think that when the entire evidence, including the statement of the accused, is considered, the court was required to give a charge requested in writing upon the subject of delusional insanity. Counsel for the plaintiff in error urged that under the ruling in the case of Roberts v. State,
This court held that the trial court erred in refusing to give the requested charge or its substance, and that he also erred in the charge he did give upon the subject. And Chief Justice Simmons, delivering the opinion of the court, said: “ Courts, both in this country and in England, have for a long time differed as to the soundness of the doctrine of the request above set out, but this court has been committed to it for over fifty years. In the case of Roberts v. State, 3 Ga. 310, Nisbet, J., discusses the subject of insanity and delusions, in an exhaustive opinion. That case announced the following proposition as the law upon this question: ‘If a man has reason sufficient to distinguish between right and wrong in relation to a particular act about to be committed, he is criminally responsible. An exception to this rule, however, is, where a man has reason sufficient to distinguish between right and wrong as to a particular act about to be committed, yet, in consequence of some delusion, the will is overmastered and there is no criminal intent. Provided that the act itself is connected with the peculiar delusion under which the prisoner is labouring/ This case has never since been overruled, doubted, or questioned by#this court, but has been recognized* and approved in the only two cases where the subject of delusions has been treated since that time.” At first blush, it might seem that under the decision in the Flanagan case, and the reasoning upon which it is based, the charge requested should have been given. But there are differences in the facts. In the Flanagan case there was evidence sufficient to sustain the theory of delusion, under which the defendant claimed that he was acting; that Flanagan believed that he was being unjustly persecuted by certain persons, and “he was endeavoring to escape from his persecutors, and,
Lloyd Mars, a son of the accused, sworn on behalf of the State, testified, in part: “Before this Saturday night that he told her to leave there and not come back, he had threatened her; he threatened her the Friday night before that; us children were on the porch, and he says, ‘Children, do you all think you can take care of yourselves?’ And I spoke and asked him why; and he says, ‘Well, I think slow driving and low conversation would be the best thing here,’ and he says, ‘There amt no telling what morning will bring about.’ I heard him threaten to kill her on the first Sunday in July. Mr. Bill Urie’s baby died that Saturday, and she went to see the child that evening, and Sunday afternoon he told her, ‘I would rather you wouldn’t go; you have got to take care of the children,’ and she turned and says, ‘Lloyd, can’t you
The defendant’s statement, in page after page as reported, relates matters that are utterly immaterial. In one part, after telling of the surroundings at the mill in which he and his wife worked, he said: “Later on I got to noticing my wife and Mr. Bill Urie, a loom fixer at the cotton mill, continuously laughing and talking all the time from just one thing to the other; they were conversing with each other all the time; every time that he could make it convenient to get to her loom he was there; and I told her, I says, 'Mother, it won’t do.’ I says, 'People will talk about you.’ I says, 'That man has got a wife and children; and even if he didn’t have, you have got some children and got a piece of a man, so quit that,’ and she says, 'Yes, I realize that I have got a bag of bones, an old wrinkled-face, snaggled-tooth, no account thing that aint worth a dime,’ and I says, 'Well, Mother, don’t do that. I
Continuing his statement, the accused described the coming of his wife on the Sunday afternoon when she was killed, saying, “They drove up in the car somewhere near ten o’clock I would suppose, and I had cried and begged all the afternoon for somebody to help me to get my family straight, and it seemed like that the more people tried to do it the worse shape it got in. 1 had been praying to the Lord fox advice and guidance as to which way could I do and could I turn. Well, they drove up, and I asked her — no, wait a minute. Just before they drove, up I asked-my brother for a chew of tobacco, and he sáys, ‘I haven’t got any tobacco; I have got some snuff,’ and I says, ‘Well, give me a little of it,’ and he handed me the snuff-box- and I taken a little of the snuff and handed it back to him. They drove up, and I walked on out to the car. When she spoke she called Lloyd, and he was asleep, and my brother asked her if Onnie Belle wouldn’t do as well, and asked what she wanted. I said to her, ‘Get out,’ I says, ‘Get out, Mother, and stay with us,’ I says, ‘The baby isn’t well nohow.’ She says, ‘No, I aint going to stay with you any more.’ I told her, I says, ‘Mother, I would give anything in this world if you just would come back and stay with us and let us live as happy as we possibly can.’ She says, ‘You can live any^where you want to, or any way you want to, but I am not coming back to you any more.’ Then I asked her about going to Cordele, and she said, yes, she wanted to go to Cordele to see Brother Walters; he was over there running a meeting somewhere over near Cordele, but she didn’t say she was going; she said she didn’t know about that. I told her, I says, ‘I want you to get out, and I don’t mean may be,’ I says, ‘Get out and stay with us.’ I says, ‘We need you and your attention.’ She told Mr. Hardwick to drive on, and as he started off I stepped into the ear, and when I stepped into the car I was hit with a spark-plug wrench, and here is the sign of it. You all know what a spark-plug wrench is,
We have thought it proper to set forth long portions of the statement and portions of the testimony of the daughter and son, to show the state of mind of this defendant and to illustrate the question as to whether or not there was delusional insanity. There is evidence from which the jury might have found that the defendant was jealous of the attentions not only of one man but of two or three. What was the delusion? Was it the delusion under which he labored when he saw or thought he saw Bill Hrie talking with his wife and laughing and chatting with her? That can not be the contention. Was it an insane delusion when he concluded that his wife was guilty of acts of infidelity with Urie, if he did so conclude? That could not be inferred. If so, every murder by a jealous man of his suspected spouse could be defended on the ground of delusional insanity. Is the delusion insisted upon to be found in the statement of the prisoner as follows: “ On Friday night that my wife was at Mr. Hardwick’s I hadn’t been sleep
We have pretermitted what might be urged in reply to the contention that the court erred in not giving the charge requested, by saying that the particular delusion insisted upon is not shown; or a principle which has been recognized, that if the delusion is as to a fact which would not excuse the act with which the prisoner is charged, the delusion does not authorize an acquittal of the defendant. Besides, there is a defect in this request to charge, in that it omits reference to the connection between the delusion claimed and the crime committed; and that must be shown, and it must appear that the relation of cause and effect exists between the delusion and the act committed.
It is unnecessary to elaborate upon the rulings made in headnotes five to fifteen, inclusive.
Exception is taken to the following charge of the court: “Under our system of government, in the trial of criminal cases a jury of the vicinage, of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed, are empaneled for the purpose of sitting in solemn judgment to ascertain and determine upon a verdict— the word verdict meaning the truth — as to what should be a proper determination and ending of the case. Our law provides that the jury commissioners of each county are appointed in the way provided by law, and that of a certain percentage of the citizenship of the county subject to jury service jurors’ names are placed in the jury-box, and from time to time drawn therefrom by the presiding judge, in company with the sheriff and the clerk. Those jurors’ names are placed in the jury-box by reason of their uprightness, their intelligence, apd their experience, and they
The charge was not error requiring the grant of a new trial, upon any of the reasons urged. It- was intended, no doubt, to impress upon the jury the solemn character of the duties and responsibilities resting upon them. It called attention to the important duty resting upon men serving as jurors in the trial of a case like this. It did call attention to the interest of society and of the State and of the entire body of the people; but it also was calculated to impress them with the solemnity of their responsibilities when sitting in final and solemn judgment upon the life and liberty of an accused man, and was calculated to impress them with the-duty of “doing equal and exact justice between man and society;” and it called upon the jury in the discharge of their duty to “look to the evidence in the case;” and the court then explained that when he used the word “evidence” he included the defendant’s statement, and urged upon the jury to give it such weight and credit as they thought it was entitled to. Where the court deals with a subject like that dealt with in this portion of the charge, the charge is prophylactic in nature, as has been said. The trial court is not bound in the course of his instructions to make an appeal to jurors to do entire-justice and to impartially decide the issues involved in the trial of the case; but when he sees proper to do so, it does not constitute error upon which this court would be authorized to grant a new trial.
Judgment affirmed.