210 Ga. 708 | Ga. | 1954
Lillie Mae White was indicted for the murder of Janie May Marshall (a three-year old child). It is alleged in the indictment that the accused committed the act for which she was charged by striking the deceased with her hands and fists and by striking and beating her with some blunt instrument to the grand jurors unknown. The jury convicted her with a recommendation that she be imprisoned for life. Thereafter she filed a motion for new trial on the usual general grounds and later amended it by adding a special ground, in which she complained of a remark which counsel for the State made in his argument to the jury. She excepted to a judgment denying her motion for new trial as amended. Held:
1. There is no merit in the general grounds of the motion for new trial. The evidence, though circumstantial, was amply sufficient to support the verdict. For cases where a conviction was obtained on circumstantial evidence and where the verdict was upheld by this court, see Giles v. State, 6 Ga. 276; Mitchum v. State, 11 Ga. 615; Houser v. State, 58 Ga. 78; Johnson v. State, 73 Ga. 107; and Wrisper v. State, 193 Ga. 157 (17 S. E. 2d 714). These cases hold that it does not require any greater degree of mental conviction to base a verdict on circumstantial evidence than it does on positive or direct testimony; and that the evidence, whether it be direct or circumstantial, is sufficient to authorize a verdict of guilty when it satisfies the mind and conscience of the jury of the defendant’s guilt to a moral and reasonable certainty and beyond a reasonable doubt.
2. During his arguments to the jury, Frank French, of counsel for the State, remarked: “This case is not a case of involuntary manslaughter; this is a case of murder. When this defendant, this woman, was beating this child, she had her heart full of malice. She had to have malice to beat the child as she did.” Because of this remark, and at the time it was made, the defendant moved for a mistrial on the ground that it was not referable to nor authorized by any evidence introduced on the trial of the defendant’s case. There is no merit in this contention, as the eomplained-of remark was a reasonable, logical, and legitimate inference which counsel for the State was authorized to draw from the evidence introduced on the trial. “In a prosecution for a homicide, a statement by the prosecuting attorney in his argument, expressive of his opinion of the defendant’s guilt, . . . should be construed to mean that' the testimony led him to this conclusion, and that the jury
On the trial, the State’s evidence and the defendant’s statement, so far as material here, were in substance as follows:
Dr. A. J. Crumbley, Fulton County’s Medical Examiner, testified: On an examination of the body of Janie May Marshall, as made by him on September 27, 1953, he found multiple bruises, abrasions, and cuts on her head, face, arms, shoulders, and on the lower parts of her body. An autopsy revealed a swollen condition of her brain, and there was a blood clot beneath the covering of the brain and pressing on the brain. On the left shoulder there was a large bruise with swelling, approximately six inches across. There were large bruises on the breastbone and the left flank and hip. The right hand was bruised and swollen considerably, and there was a laceration between the fourth and fifth fingers which extended back into the body of the hand. This laceration was rear-type,'meaning the injury had been inflicted by pulling the fingers apart. There were multiple scratches and scratch-like wounds on the child’s back with bruises beneath these wounds. ' The bruises in the muscles and fhé fat beneath the skin indicated rather sevére blows. The internal organs of the child’s abdomen were not
Judgment affirmed.
Dr. Herman Jones, Director of the Georgia Crime Laboratory, testified: He examined a small chair which came from the home of the accused and which was turned over to him by-the City of Atlanta investigating officers. The back of the chair was broken with certain pieces out and the left upright piece was loose in the chair. There was human blood on nine areas of the- chair, two of which were on the back of the chair. The blood on the chair was sprayed over it in such a way as to indicate to him that it struck the chair with considerable force. It could not, in his opinion, have been so sprayed on the chair by dropping from a wound on a person.
Lena Akin testified: The back of her house is at the back of the defendant’s house. Before the defendant moved where she now lives, she lived in a duplex house with her. On September 27, the husband of the defendant came to her home at 1:55 a. m. and requested her and her husband to come over to his home, as Janie 'May was sick and he believed she was unconscious. She reached the home of the defendant at 2:05 -a. m. and found the child on the bed. The defendant then said that the child had fallen out of the door. The child was then cold- and stiff. She wrapped the child up in a housecoat and carried her- to the hospital in a cab. She had.never seen the defendant whip the child, but had heard her whip her. The whippings she heard' would
Elsie Powell testified that she lived across the street from the defendant. „- She .heard the defendant whipping the child in May before its death- in September. On one occasion when the child was playing on the .sidewalk, she asked the defendant why the chikh .was so scarred up, and she first stated that she had fallen and .then said, “I whipped her; I tried to kill her .that time.”
■ Nannie-.:--Jones .testified-: She was a close neighbor of the defendant.', and her husband. She went to bed about 12:30 a. m. on September 27. She had been in bed about an hour when she hoard '.sc terrible-, noise which came from the direction of the defondantis home.- She did not ..know what it was, but it was loud.enoügh to:awaken her and it sounded like something being-thrown on-the..-fl'obr or against the wall. She could hear.talking, but;. could .not understand - anything that was said. Soon after hearing'-the-noise,- she saw the defendant’s husband leave his home and go in. the direction of a neighbor’s -home.
The accused in her statement to the jury said: The child’s chair had been broken, since New-Year’s by -the child and other children. The -child-.often played with the chair and pushed it on.ithe. floor; she. played with it on the afternoon before her deaths : The defendant-went to get some water from another house during the.-afternoon before the child’s death that night, and when she-returned with the second container, she saw the child'fallingv.down a set of steps, four or five in number, but when she got to -her, she was .going- back up the steps. The fall cau'sed ;thh -bumps on the mouth and head of the child. The inju'ry to-.-her- eh'e.ek was caused by striking her face against the television before-she fell down the steps. Her husband came home--about five or five-thirty before the child died during the