98 Ga. 73 | Ga. | 1896
1. The plaintiff in error, having been convicted of the offense of murder, made a motion for a new trial upon extraordinary grounds, which the circuit judge entertained, and upon which he granted a rule nisi requiring the solicitor-general, who prosecutes for the State, to show cause why a new trial should not be granted. At the hearing a motion was made to dismiss the motion for a new trial, upon the ground that the reasons urged to sustain it were insufficient in law to authorize the court to assume jurisdiction and entertain it. This motion was overruled, and the motion for a new trial, being considered upon its merits, was itself overruled. In this court counsel for the State sought to raise again the question of the insufficiency of the grounds stated to authorize the circuit judge to entertain and determine the motion for new trial, suggesting that inasmuch as the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the motion, no error thereafter committed in overruling it could be considered upon writ of error. "We do not think this contention well founded. It will be borne in mind that the present is a criminal case, and that a ruling made by a circuit judge adverse to the State, even if otherwise subject to meritorious objection, cannot be reviewed upon writ of error; and this is true even if exceptions pendente lite to the ruling complained of had been taken by counsel for the State, which was not done in the present case, and could not
2. We do not think the court erred in overruling the defendant’s motion to set aside the judgment upon either of the grounds of the motion made for that purpose. The plaintiff in error, jointly with four others, was charged in one count of the indictment as a principal in the first degree, and in the second count was charged as a principal in the second degree. The jury found against her a general verdict of guilty, and the effect of this verdict was to convict her as a principal, whether in the first or second degree is immaterial. The offense of murder in both degrees is punishable alike in this State. See Leonard v. The State, 77 Ga. 764; Collins v. The State, 88 Ga. 347, and authorities there cited. They involve the rendition of the same judgment, are carried into execution in the same manner; and hence, whatever difference of opinion may have heretofore existed as to whether the evidence necessary to support a conviction under an indictment charging one as principal in the first degree will support a conviction of one as principal in the second degree, such differences are now definitely resolved by the judgment of this court rendered in the case last above cited, wherein the present Chief Justice, then Associate Justice Simmons, in delivering the opinion of the court, pronounces as follows: “There is no difference in
3. The plaintiff in error, having been jointly indicted, elected to be tried jointly with several others. It occurred that upon the trial the State’s counsel saw proper to introduce confessions separately made by each of the several defendants, and it was objected that the court in its charge so confused the instructions to the jury as to malte the confessions made by each of the several defendants bear against the other, thus practically admitting as evidence against each other the sayings of the alleged conspirators made after the termination of the joint enterprise. We do not think that this criticism of the charge of the court is borne out by the record. We find, by reference to the charge of the court as it is certified to us, this instruction: “I further-charge you, should you find from the evidence that any one or more of the defendants made, confessions, such confession would apply only to the one making it, and would- not inculpate or implicate any other one of them so far as that particular confession is concerned.” Such an instruction was a direction to the jury, that in passing upon rights of each of the several defendants, any confession admitted should be considered only as affecting the interest of the person who made it; and under such an instruction it seems
4. Exception is taken to the failure of the court, while instructing the jury upon the subject of confessions, to charge that “confessions axe to be received with caution and scanned with care.” While it would have been the better practice for the judge to have so specially charged, upon reading the charge of the court we find that the judge instructed the jury with great fullness and fairness, not only as to the circumstances under which confessions of g’uilt were admitted in evidence and under which they were entitled to give credit to such confessions, but likewise as to their weight and the degree of corroboration necessary to support a conviction resting upon them. • Such instructions necessarily involve the idea that they are received with caution and are to be scanned with care. No man could listen to such an instruction — could be told that confessions must be fx*eely and voluntarily made, uninfluenced by fear or hope of reward, and that when received, were, even if they admitted the gxxilt of the confessox’, not sufficient to convict unless corroborated — and doubt that in receiving and acting upon them he should exercise great caution. The idea of caution is the dominant thought running through such general instructions; and hence we conclude that if an instruction mox-e particular and in the exact language of the law is desired, it should have been specially requested in the manner poixxted out by law.
5. We think the confessioxis admitted against the accused were properly allowed to go to the jury. It appears that the plaintiff in errox-, having been suspected and accused of complicity in the homicide of her husband, asked the officer having her in custody what would likely be the result if she made a conf essioxx, and that in reply to this question, she was informed that if she confessed she would either be hung or sentenced to the penitexxtiary for life. Thereupon she
6. In dealing with the evidence submitted by counsel for the plaintiff in error upon the subject of insanity, we treat the same, as it was treated by the trial judge, as newly discovered; and so treating it, a careful review of all the evidence submitted upon the part of the accused, and a comparison of that with the evidence submitted upon the part of the State, leaves not the trace of doubt upon the mind of this court that the defense sought to be set up thereby is -wholly imaginative and utterly without merit. A considerable portion of the evidence submitted for the accused, and that which seems at firsr glance to be most direct and credible, upon examination appears to have been fabricated. An illustration of this is to be found in the fact that on the fifth day of October, 1895, one Nancy Landfair made an -affidavit upon the general subject of the mental condition'of the accused, and stated, with great minuteness of detail, facts bearing upon the mental condition of her ancestors, .and which, if true, might have borne out to some extent -the theory of the insanity of the accused. This affidavit ■was subscribed before one Hendricks, a justice of the peace; .and yet the same witness, on the 26th of the same month, makes an affidavit in which she utterly repudiates the sworn -.statement attributed to her, and states that she was fraudu
I. A verdict of guilty was the only one which under the facts of the present case could have been lawfully rendered. To have reached any other conclusion a jury must have closed its eyes to the law, its ears to the evidence, and its conscience to the appeals of justice and truth. A more cunning or remorseless scheme for the commission of a coldblooded murder was never conceived or earned into execution. That a woman who, so far as the evidence shows, could have no cause of complaint against her husband, should calmly and deliberately plan his assassination, and await for months a favorable occasion for carrying into execution her murderous design, seems almost inconceivable. The circumstances of the killing do not indicate the action of a weak mind; there is nothing in the perfection of detail with which the plan of assassination was conceived or exe
Judgment affirmed.