36 S.E.2d 866 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1946
"The law of voluntary manslaughter may properly be given in charge to the jury on the trial of one indicted for murder, where, from the evidence or from the defendant's statement to the jury, there is anything deducible which would tend to show that he was guilty of manslaughter, *406 voluntary or involuntary, or which would be sufficient to raise a doubt as to whether the homicide was murder or manslaughter."
(a) "It is likewise well settled that it is the prerogative of the jury to accept the defendant's statement as a whole, or to reject it as a whole, to believe it in part, or to disbelieve it in part. In the exercise of this discretion they are unlimited."
The undisputed evidence shows the following facts: Pittman and Hayes were brothers-in-law and lived near each other. They had engaged in a violent dispute and fight about eight months before the homicide. Hayes was shot and killed by the defendant at a "moonshine" whisky still on a Thursday night, on February 15, 1945; and on Saturday of the preceding week, Pittman had told Dallas Lisenby that, if Hayes "crossed him anymore he would kill him." On Thursday afternoon Pittman and Hayes left Hayes' house and went to the still to make whisky; and at about 9 o'clock that night Pittman returned to the house and carried away his shotgun which Hayes had borrowed from him. Pittman's wife and other women present asked him what he was going to do with the gun, but he made no answer and ran off. Some of the women ran after him, but could not catch him. At about 10 that night the women at Hayes' house heard two gunshots; later on that night the defendant told Nettie Parker, J. P. Hudspeth, and Sheriff Howell that he had shot and killed Hayes at the still, and the sheriff found the body there. No person saw the killing except the defendant and Hayes.
The headnote is quoted from Long v. State,
In our opinion, the verdict was authorized by the evidence and portions of the defendant's statement to the jury; and the court *408 did not err in instructing the jury upon the law of mutual combat and the law of voluntary manslaughter.
The overruling of the motion for a new trial was not error.
Judgment affirmed. MacIntyre and Gardner, JJ., concur.