12 Ga. App. 557 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1913
The accused was convicted under an accusation based upon section 217 of the Penal Code. The accusation charged that the accused, on the 13th day of .August, 1912, “did unlawfully and wilfully enter, go upon, and pass over a certain field and cultivated land, the said land and field being located on lot of land Number 91, in the 3rd land district of originally Irwin, now Ben Hill county, Georgia, and being known as five-acre tract No. 1196, the said land being the land of said Whitchard, after personally forbidden so to do by the said S. M. Whitchard, contrary to the laws of State, the good order, peace, and dignity thereof.” The accused demurred to the accusation, upon the ground that the premises upon which the allege ¿trespass was committed were not described with sufficient particularity, and upon the further ground that the accusation charged that the offense, was committed on August 13, whereas the affidavit upon which the accusation was found alleged that the offense occurred on August 3. The solicitor amended the accusation by inserting the words, “and field,” after the words, “said land,” following the words, “tract .Number 1196.” And the solicitor stated to the court that the figures in the accusation which appeared to be “13th” were really intended for “3rd,” that “10” had first been written, and then “3rd” written over the cipher, and the solicitor neglected to erase the figure “1.” The demurrer was overruled, and the accused excepted pendente lite.
At the trial there was but one witness,—Whitchard, the owner of the land upon which the .trespass was alleged to have been committed. From his testimony the following appeared; He was the owner of a five-acre tract of land, cultivated and known as tract number 1196. Several months before the alleged offense 'the witness hired the wife of the accused, who worked for him as a farm-hand, and rented to her a shanty located on the west side of the tract known as 1196'. Some time in the spring of the year the accused was forbidden by the landlord to go upon the five-acre tract, and in August he was seen in the yard, within about ten feet of the house where his wife lived. There was a road leading from the house out to the public road, but the accused was never
There are several special grounds in the motion for new trial, some of which are disposed of in the foregoing discussion. It was improper to permit the landlord to testify that the accused had been making trouble among his hands. This was entirely irrelevant to any issue involved in the case. While not entirely appropriate, it was not reversible error for-the judge to instruct the jury in reference to reconciling conflicts in the testimony of witnesses.