100 Ga. App. 663 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1959
The whole theory of the defendant is that a mob of about 40 Negroes had assembled in a part of the City of Pembroke where they had resided pursuant to a conspiracy to kill the chief of police; that he was invited to embark upon this conspiracy by a brother of the decedent and refused; that his refusal caused members of the mob1 to berate him and bring him into disfavor; that this led to the ultimate unpleasantness and resulted in his being forced to- shoot the decedent in self-defense under circumstances which according to the defendant’s statement were justified as the decedent was advancing upon him with a knife at the time. Witnesses present denied that the decedent was armed and insisted that the shooting was without any provocation whatever. Even if the jury did not believe that the decedent was armed, a defendant certainly could be acting under the fears of a reasonable man if he is armed with one pistol and is literally surrounded by 40 unarmed, able-bodied antagonists. Even the chief of police, who was not only armed with a service revolver but also with the authority and majesty of the law, recognized the danger at the hands of this mob.
Negroes were assembled; that when he drove up a brother of the decedent and others including the decedent himself approached his car and took him to task about an arrest he had made a short time previously of another Negro; that the attitude of the mob was belligerent and threatening; that one of them drove a car into the rear of his car so that he could not back up; another drove his car into the front so that he could not move his car forward; that he himself was afraid of trouble with the mob and felt the necessity for getting out of the area; that while he was being condemned by members of the mob the defendant spoke up in his behalf and undertook to appease the mob' by pointing out that in making the previous arrest, which was the basic reason for the ire of the mob, the police chief had no doubt only done his duty; that this caused brothers of the decedent in his presence and probably also the decedent himself to heap vile epithets upon the defendant such as “white-loving S.O.B.”; that in order to get away from this dangerous situation the defendant moved his car which was already parked in its position before the police chief arrived so that the chief could drive his car out of the mob into a place of safety. This left the defendant by himself and pitted against 40 mobsters. The police chief immediately went to the mayor and reported this incident. The killing followed within 20 minutes thereafter.
Clearly, under Haynes v. State, 17 Ga. 465 et seq., the testi
Grounds 3 and 4 of the amended motion complain of the omission by the court, in his charging -of Code § 26-1012, of the words “to justify the killing. It must appear that the circum
The trial court erred in denying the motion for new trial.
Judgment reversed,.