3 Ga. App. 336 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1907
Lead Opinion
Offie Parker, a white boy sixteen years old, was convicted of the crime of assault with intent to commit rape on the person of a little white girl named May Johnson, ten years of age. He made a motion for a new trial, based on the general grounds and on several special assignments of error. This being denied, he brings the case to this court.
1. As to the three general grounds of the motion it may be stated that the verdict of the jury was amply supported by the evidence. The little girl testified that while she was on her way to school, between seven and eight o’clock in the morning, the defendant suddenly jumped out of the bushes, grabbed and dragged her to “a little spot of pines,” where he forcibly and against her will made'the felonious assault. Her testimony fully establishes the commission of the offense, and she is corroborated by facts and circumstances testified to by other witnesses. Some of these circumstances and facts of corroboration are as follows: First, she was seen by several witnesses on the road to school near the place where she said the offense took place, and about the time she said it took place. During recess, a few hours after the commission of the offense, she made complaint to a schoolmate, exhibiting to this schoolmate her drawers, which were torn and ripped, and stating to her that they were so torn and ripped by her assailant at the time of the assault. The schoolmate testified that the complaint was so made, and also testified as to the said condition of the drawers. She further made complaint the same afternoon, so she states, to her mother and stepfather, when she went home from school; and the next morning, in company with her stepfather
2.' When the case wás called for trial, a motion for continuance was made, on the ground that the brother of the defendant, who was a material witness in his behalf, was absent from the court. Alibi was the defense relied upon, and the defendant claimed that he could show, by this absent witness, that on the morning of the
4. The following extract from the charge of the court was excepted to as erroneous: “A reasonable doubt of the law is one that grows out- of the testimony or from the absence of testimony, and leaves a reasonable mind wavering and unsettled, and not satisfied from the evidence. A juror can not create for himself
5. It is insisted that the court erred in charging the jury as follows: “When a witness has been successfully impeached by any of the legal methods known to the law,' — that is, where his unworthiness of credit is absolutely established in the minds of the jury, — he ought not to be believed, and it is the duty of the jury to disregard his or her entire testimony, unless it is corroborated; it being, of course, always a matter for the jury whether a witness has been in fact impeached.” We do not see any error in this charge, especially when it is considered in connection,with the entire charge on the same subject. On the contrary, we think the charge on this subject left the credibility of all the witnesses to be determined by the jury. The excerpt excepted to is exactly in the language approved by the Supreme Court in Powell v. State, 122 Ga. 571 (50 S. E. 369), and substantially in that approved by the Supreme Court in Ga. R. Co. v. Andrews, 125 Ga. 87 (54 S. E. 76), and in Smith v. State, 109 Ga. 479 (53 S. E. 59). Judgment affirmed.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring. I concur; but I wish to say that the evidence in the record against the defendant, is not to my mind