13 Ga. App. 728 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1913
The record in this case, to our -mind, develops a remarkable state of facts. In saying this we, of course, accord to the testimony in behalf of the prosecution the same preference which the judge (who tried the case without a jury) gave it, and disregard entirely the defendant’s showing so far as in conflict with it. The defendant was charged with a violation of the “labor-contract act” (Acts of 1903, p. 90), embodied in sections 715 and 716 of the Penal Code, and was adjudged guilty and sentenced to 'serve twelve months upon -the chain-gang, without any alternative. A review of the evidence shows that the accused had contracted to serve as a farm laborer, or share-cropper, with the prosecutor for twelve months from January 1, 1913, to January 1, 1914. He worked from January 1, 1913, until May 10, 1913, and during that entire period, according to the testimony of the prosecutor himself, received the sum total of $11.20, $10 of which was paid him in December, 1912, at the time the contract was made, $1.20 being the sum paid in May, 1913, upon which the prosecution in the case at bar is based. The defendant was one of three share-croppers with whom the prosecutor contracted at the same time; and though the prosecutor contracted with each separately, it appears that the three were to jointly cultivate, in corn and cotton, in return for one half of the crop they might by their labor produce, 70 acres or more on the prosecutor’s plantation. According to the testimony the contract of the prosecutor with the defendant, as with each of his co-laborers, made them what are ordinarily known as “croppers,” and, as a legal result of this relation, the title to the crop was in the prosecutor as landlord. Tolbert and Alonzo Wright, the two persons who, according to the testimony of the prosecutor, severally contracted with him to cultivate the two tracts of land jointly with the accused, so far as appears from the record, con-
The testimony does not show that the defendant did not work faithfully, barring lost time (probably caused by bad weather), during the four and a third months of his service under the contract, but the prosecutor testified: "On the 10th day of May he got $1.20 in money from me, of the value of $1.20. He told me he wanted the money, and I let him have it because he was working on a share-crop with me. I would not have loaned the money if he had not been working with me. After obtaining the $1.20 Jule Mobley quit the crop and left, and never worked any more in the crop. He has done no work for me since, neither has he paid nor offered to pay me the $1.20 back.” The prosecutor further testified that the defendant left because he did not want to pay the prosecutor, and that he (the prosecutor) was damaged $1.20, and was damaged more than this because his crop suffered for want of work. He testified also that he paid the defendant’s road tax (amounting to $3), but, since there is no suggestion that this payment was made at the request of the defendant, and since no one can, as a matter of right, make another pay his debts by paying them for him and then requiring that the sum advanced be repaid, this payment is immaterial.
To say the least of it, we do not think that the evidence showed, beyond a reasonable doubt, that this laborer, in procuring the loan of $1.20 after four and a half months of faithful service, intended to defraud his employer. It is a matter of common knowledge that ordinarily by the 10th of May arable land has been prepared for planting and corn and cotton have been planted, and have generally received their first working. There is nothing in the record to suggest that this was not true in the present case. It might have been possible for the prosecutor to prove his loss with sufficient definiteness to have established it, but he did not attempt to do so, and, on the contrary, it appears that one Charley Wright came to the defendant’s place after the defendant left, and took the defendant’s place in the crop, and that Charley Wright will be paid out of the crop as a part of the expenses. There is nothing to suggest that Charley Wright is not as good a farm-hand as the defendant,
Judgment reversed.