129 Ga. 541 | Ga. | 1907
Sylvester Sasser was indicted for murder, and was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment, at the November term, 1906, of Screven superior court. Motion for new trial was duly made during the term, and at the hearing of the motion the judge passed an order overruling the same, to which tiie defendant excepted.
M. L. Parker, while standing in a bedroom of his residence in Screven county, about midnight the 8th day of April, 1905, was killed by some one on the ground, who fired upon, him through a window, with a gun loaded with buckshot. On the next day, near the premises, there were found horse tracks,. which the State claimed were made by the horse of the defendant. A negro woman, who was a servant in the home of the deceased at the time of the homicide, testified that she saw the defendant under a tree in the yard of the deceased at about 8 o’clock on the night of the homicide. The State contended that the defendant was criminally intimate with the wife of the deceased. Much evidence was introduced on both sides of the case in support of their respective contentions.
In addition to allegations of error in the rulings and charge of the court, several of the grounds of the amendment to the motion for new trial attack the competency of the jurors who tried the ease, on the grounds, that they were not impartial between the State and the accused; that prejudice and bias rested on their minds against him; that after hearing evidence delivered on the first trial, opinions had been formed and expressed in regard to the guilt of the accused. These grounds of the amended motion complain that one of the jurors, before the trial of the case, stated that “Sasser had killed Parker and ought to be hung,” that another juror, prior to the trial, had said “Sylvester Sasser and Mrs. M. L. Parker ought to be stobbed to* a stump and burnt, and if I was on the jury I would hang him,” and that “Sylvester Sasser ought to be hung and she ought to be burnt;” and that another
The affidavits offered by the defendant, attached to his motion ns exhibits, and filed with his motion as a part thereof, will be considered by this court, as the motion of which they are a part is a part of the record in the case. These affidavits were referred to. in the grounds of the amendment to the motion for new trial, attached thereto as exhibits, duly marked with letters, and made and filed as a part of the motion itself. These affidavits, standing before this court uncontradicted, show that three of the jurors on the jury which convicted the defendant, under the repeated rulings of this court, were not competent jurors; and a new trial must of necessity follow.
The judgment of the court below is, therefore
Reversed.