114 Ga. 538 | Ga. | 1902
Stripling was indicted for the offense of carrying about his person a pistol concealed and not fully exposed to view. One witness testified that he had seen the defendant on a named day and at a certain place with a pistol in his right hip-pocket. Defendant had on his coat and he did not see him draw the pistol out— in fact he did not see the pistol at all, but he knew it was a pistol because he saw the shape'of it. Witness further testified that the state of his feelings towards the defendant was not friendly. Another witness testified that on a particular day in April and May, 1901, at a particular place, he saw defendant with a pistol in his hip-pocket. Once he was in a road-cart, and on another occasion was standing. Defendant’s coat was off both times, and witness could see that he had a pistol; a part of the handle was exposed and could be seen when one walked behind the defendant. Still another witness testified that he had, several times within the last two years, seen defendant with a pistol in his hip-pocket; that on these occasions there was only a small portion of the handle exposed. The defendant was convicted, and moved for a new trial. Besides the grounds that the verdict was contrary to law and without evidence to support it, he complained of the following charge given by the court to the jury on the trial: “I charge you, gentlemen of the jury, that a pistol must be carried in such an open manner and so fully exposed to view that a person meeting the one with the weapon would readily see and know that he had a pistol about his person.” We think this charge was error. Webster defines “meet” to mean “to come upon or against, front to front, as distinguished from contact by following and overtaking,” and we think this the ordinary and popular meaning of the word. We are confident that the trial judge did not, in using the word “ meeting ” in the above extract, mean that it should be accepted by the jury in the sense of the
Again, the evidence in this case, when critically examined, does not authorize a conviction. It is true that one witness said that on a particular day defendant had a pistol in his hip-pocket. He did not see him draw it, and in fact did not see the pistol at all,
Judgment reversed.