184 Ga. 343 | Ga. | 1937
Eli Melton was convicted on an indictment charging him with the offense of rape upon the person of Miss Wiletta Carlisle on February 13, 1936. The jury did not recommend mercy. The defendant made a motion for a new trial on the general grounds, and on four special grounds. The motion was overruled, and the defendant excepted. The evidence for the State showed substantially the following facts: On February 13, 1936, Miss Carlisle and a young man to whom she was engaged to be married, named James F. Etheridge, were together in Etheridge’s car and rode out to the city waterworks of Columbus. They had just parked the car and were preparing to get out of the car and get some water, when a man, armed with a pistol, walked up to the car and ordered them to get out. This man was identified on the trial by both Etheridge and Miss Carlisle as Eli Melton. Keeping them covered with his pistol, Melton forced Etheridge to get in the car and drive, stating that he' was going to take them to the police station. Instead of taking the road leading back into Columbus and to the police station, Melton ordered Etheridge to turn ofE on a side road; and after driving several miles into the country he made Etheridge and Miss Carlisle get out of the car, walk ahead of him over some rough country and into the woods, and then, while he kept his gun pointed at Etheridge, whom he ordered to place his arms upon the limb of a tree and keep them there, Melton forced Miss Carlisle to lie down, and he threatened to kill her if she did not submit to him. Miss Carlisle struggled with Melton; but he being a powerful man and having threatened to kill her with the pistol, she was compelled, through fear and phjfsical force, to lie down, and the defendant committed the offense of rape upon her. After he completed this act, he instructed Miss Carlisle not to tell Etheridge what had happened, stating that if she did he would kill her. On the following day she was examined by Dr. W. P. Jordon, who found that her hymen had not been ruptured, but that she had three distinct bruises on the outside of the hymen, on the inside of the vagina. This doctor testified: "There has been a penetration about a half an inch.”
Two police officers, W. C. Webster and H. J. Willis, were permitted to testify over the objection of counsel for the defendant that such testimony was prejudicial, irrelevant, and immaterial, in that it related to a separate and distinct charge. Webster tes
The defendant set up the defense of alibi, and produced several witnesses, most of whom were members of his family, who testified to the effect that about the time the crime here charged was alleged to have been committed, he was at the home of his mother.
Tn addition to the general grounds, there are four special assignments. In the first of these, error is assigned upon the admission in evidence of the following testimony of Webster, a witness for the State: "I saw Mr. Etheridge the following night on the fourteenth day of February. I saw him that night. My brother officer and I continued our search for this man. The next time I saw Mr. Melton was the night after this affair happened in the waterworks woods. When I first saw Mr. Melton he was walking
The court properly admitted this evidence. While it related to a transaction different from that for which the accused was on trial, yet it was admissible, because it tended to illustrate the bent of the defendant’s mind, his plan and scheme, and to illustrate them in such a way as to throw light on the charge made against
The rulings made in headnotcs 2 and 3 require no elaboration.
Judgment affirmed.