153 Ga. 354 | Ga. | 1922
(After stating the foregoing facts.) There is no merit in the amendment to the motion for new trial. The case is one of circumstantial evidence, and of course it was not error to give the jury the definition of that character of evidence and when it is sufficient to authorize a conviction, as stated in the Penal Code (1910), §§ 1009, 1010.
The case turns upon the question whether the corpus delicti was sufficiently proved. Before a conviction can be legally had on the charge of murder, it is essential, in proving the corpus delicti, to show that the person alleged in the indictment to have been killed is actually dead, and that the death was caused or accomplished by violence, or other direct criminal agency of some other human being. 1 Whart. Cr. L. (11th ed.), § 347. In 1 Whart. Cr. Ev. (10th ed.), § 325d, it is said: “ The general rule in homicide is that the criminal agency — the cause of the death, the second element of the corpus delicti — may always be shown by circumstantial evidence. To sustain a conviction, proof of the criminal agency is as indispensable as the proof of death. The fact of death is not sufficient; it must affirmatively appear that the death was not accidental, that it was not due to natural causes, and that it was not due to the act of the deceased. . . It must affirmatively appear that death resulted from criminal agency. But
To authorize a conviction in this case, it was necessary for the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lucinda Underwood • was dead, and that she was killed by being choked or strangled with the hands of the defendant, or by being smothered or suffocated by having her head wrapped up with a quilt by him, or by his burning her with fire. And the evidence being wholly circumstantial, the proved facts had not only to be consistent with the hypothesis that the defendant caused her death by one or more of such methods, but had to exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of her guilt as charged. The State failed to prove that she was burned to death, as the State’s witness, Ida Cunningham, testified positively that her sister, Lucinda, was dead when she saw her body lying in the defendant’s yard wrapped in a quilt, and before it was carried to the house where it was found in the fireplace. And she also testified that she saw the defendant set fire to the quilt after the dead body had been placed by herself and the defendant in the fireplace. . There were no marks of violence found upon the body of Lucinda, except those caused by the burning of the quilt, and a burn on her back which she had suffered some time before the homicide. Dr. Mitchell testified that he discovered no marks of violence upon the dead body, except the burns, and that (to quote him) “I have not made up a definite opinion as to how her death was produced; there are two or three different ways it could have been produced; she could have been strangled, suffocated and burned, overcome with flames.” We have already stated that it appeared that her death was not caused by burns, and the doctor, as we have seen, found no evidence to indicate that she was strangled or suffocated. He merely thought that her death could have been caused by such means. This may be true, but why could it not have been caused by other means than by strangulation or suffocation P Of course, the jury had the right to believe the testimony of Ida Cunningham to the effect that the defendant some time during the night awakened her by calling her in a tone sufficiently loud to
If Ida Cunningham’s testimony be true, it casts a grave suspicion upon the defendant as to the cause of Lucinda’s death; yet a conviction can not, of course, stand based upon a serious suspicion alone. For the reasons stated the judge erred in not granting a new trial.
Judgment reversed.
Being of the opinion that there was some evidence to authorize the jury to find that the defendant committed the murder as charged in the indictment, I dissent from the ruling of the'majority.