Jones v. State
| Decision Date | 09 April 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 24538,24538 |
| Citation | 161 S.E.2d 302,224 Ga. 283 |
| Parties | Jesse Leon JONES v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. There is no rule in Georgia requiring the State to make its evidence, documentary or otherwise, available to the defendant or his counsel before trial.
2. In a capital felony case it is not error to excuse for cause jurors conscientiously opposed to capital punishment.
3. A conversation to explain conduct is admissible in evidence.
4. An enumeration of error showing no harm to the defendant will not authorize a new trial.
5. In order to invoke the provisions of Code Ann. § 27-1403, prohibiting the State from using witnesses under certain circumstances when the defendant has not been furnished their names, it is necessary that a demand for the names be made before arraignment.
6. The evidence did not authorize a charge on voluntary manslaughter.
7. Reversible error cannot be shown by complaint as to mere fragments of the court's charge when the whole charge on such subjects shows no error.
8. Under the record in the present case the attacks made upon the method of selecting a jury cannot be raised for the first time after verdict.
9. The evidence authorized the verdict.
Hester & Hester, Frank B. Hester, Richard M. Hester, Atlanta, for appellant.
Lewis R. Slaton, Sol. Gen., J. Roger Thompson, J. Walter LeCraw, Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Marion O. Gordon, Asst. Atty. Gen., William R. Childers, Jr., Deputy Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, for appellee.
Jesse Leon Jones was convicted of murder on June 21, 1967, and sentenced to death by electrocution. The appeal is from such judgment.
1. Enumeration of error 4 contends that the trial court erred in refusing access to the appellant of 'transcriptions of oral interrogatories by representatives of the Atlanta Police Department of State witnesses and medical reports concerning the results of the physical examination of the deceased, requested in defendant's motion for discovery filed May 29, 1967.' Such enumeration of error is without merit. As was held in Blevins v. State, 220 Ga. 720(2), 141 S.E.2d 426, and quoted with approval in Williams v. State, 222 Ga. 208, 212, 149 S.E.2d 449, 453: 'There is no statute or rule of procedure of force in this State which requires a solicitor-general or other prosecuting officer to make his evidence, documentary or otherwise, available to the accused or his counsel before trial.'
This case, unlike Giles v. State of Maryland, 386 U.S. 66, 87 S.Ct. 793, 17 L.Ed.2d 737, shows no attempt by the State to suppress evidence or to present perjured testimony on the trial.
2. The fifth enumeration of error which complains of the trial court's excusing prospective jurors because they were conscientiously opposed to capital punishment is without merit. See Williams v. State, supra; Clarke v. Grimes, 223 Ga. 461(4), 156 S.E.2d 91, and citations.
3. The sixth enumeration of error complains of the refusal of the trial court to declare a mistrial after a witness for the State testified with reference to a conversation which took place out of the presence of the accused. The witness was detailing events which led to the arrest of the accused. The particular question dealt with the witness's conduct in determining the place where the defendant was hiding at the time he was arrested. The testimony complained of was that a named person told them the defendant was in the attic of a house. Such testimony to explain conduct in looking for and finding the accused in such location was admissible. See Code § 38-302; Coleman v. State, 127 Ga. 282, 56 S.E. 417; Bryant v. State, 191 Ga. 686, 689(14), 13 S.E.2d 820.
4. The seventh enumeration of error complains of the refusal of the trial court to permit counsel for the appellant to have a copy of a written statement made by a witness for the State until after the State rested its case. In response to the request for such statement the court ruled: 'I will permit you to see whatever statement he had made, if he has made such a statement, after the State rests its case, and then I will permit you to recall this witness if you wish to do so.' The motion seeking such statement was for the purpose of determining if contradictory statements had been made by the witness and if so to use such statement for the purpose of impeachment. The ruling of the court did not preclude the defense from obtaining the statement, if any existed, but merely postponed it until the State finished presenting its case. It not appearing that the defendant again requested the statement, that any statement did in fact exist, or that the defendant was in any way prohibited from a thorough and sifting cross examination of such witness, no harmful error, if indeed any error, is shown by this enumeration of error.
5. The eighth enumeration of error complains of the refusal of the trial court to grant a mistrial after a witness for the State had testified when such witness's name was not on the list of witnesses furnished the defendant prior to the trial. The testimony of such witness was stricken and the jury instructed to disregard it.
The basis of the defendant's complaint is that the witness should not have been permitted to testify in view of the language of the Act of 1966 (Ga.L. 1966, pp. 430, 431) Code § 27-1403 as follows: ...
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