Green v. State

• Decision Date: 15 April 1943
• Docket Number: 14458.
• Parties: GREEN v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

25 S.E.2d 502

195 Ga. 759

GREEN v. STATE.

No. 14458.

Supreme Court of Georgia

April 15, 1943

Dock H. Green was convicted of murder in the killing of Jack Looney, and was recommended to mercy. His motion for a new trial was overruled, and he excepted.

The evidence for the State showed that the defendant resided in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Looney, being employed as a farm laborer; that on a Sunday in February, 1942, Looney, after finishing dinner, left the defendant and others at the table and went out into the yard for some purpose; and that when he returned and went into the house, persons about the place including Mrs. Looney, heard the report of a shotgun. Mrs Looney testified, in part, as follows: 'I was in the chicken house [feeding the chickens]. Jack just walked back towards the house. He didn't have anything in his hands that I could tell. It couldn't have been more than two or three minutes after he passed the window [of the chicken house] until I heard the shot fire. I did not see the shot fired, I heard it. I did not hear any one make an outcry. When I heard the shot I set down my feed and went to the door and went back and broke and run into the house. I don't expect it took a minute from the time the shot fired until I reached the house. I found my husband on the back porch. He was sinking down on the porch. I was the first person to him after he was shot, and I arrived there in less than a minute after the shot was fired. When I reached him he said 'Dock shot me.' * * * He said he was bleeding to death and he was going to die. He told me to sell all he had it was enough to take care of me all my life if I would take care of it and let nobody take it. When I got him on the porch, he said, 'May, Dock shot me; what he done it for I don't know, for I was the best friend Dock had, and I thought he was my best friend; and says, 'Where you find my pipe at the door was where he shot me, and I am dying.' I found the pipe laying just inside the living-room door. When he was shot he was in the front room of the house. When I got there he was on the porch sinking down on the floor. He was shot in the bowels. I got him into the house. He just kept saying the same thing all over--every one come in he would tell the same thing he told me. I heard it every time he told it.'

Other witnesses testified to the same general effect. It appeared from some of the evidence that the defendant and the deceased, with other men, had walked about the farm in the forenoon, going 'over into the woods about an old sawmill place,' and that they 'got some liquor.' There were no eyewitnesses to the immediate act of the homicide.

The defendant's statement on the trial was as follows:

'Well, gentlemen, you are already aware of the fact that I was staying with Jack Looney, and on the 21st of February, in the afternoon, I told Jack that I was going to quit the following week, about the first of the week, and try to get in the army, because they had been refusing me on account of my teeth--at that time the requirements were very rigid about teeth, but since then they lowered it. I went to Flowery Branch that afternoon late, and I came back to Walter Cantrell's house, and he lived alone as a bachelor I believe, and I stayed awhile with him and told him I believed I would go back to Looney's, and he says 'Don't go; just stay until morning. I am going back to get some more whisky.' We woke early in the morning of the 22d, and went down to Mr. Looney's house I imagine about seven-thirty, and Mr. Looney invited Walt in to have breakfast, and if I am not mistaken he drank a cup of coffee, I don't believe he eat any, and Mr. Looney went out to the chicken house and asked me if I would water and feed the mules, and I told him all right, I would feed and water the mules, and I was behind the barn and when I got back Bannister and Looney was out at the chicken house, and Jack walked out, and we was out there about an hour, that would have made it about eight forty-five, and Walter Cantrell told him, Jack Looney, he wanted some whisky, and he said 'I haven't any at the house, we will have to go to my thicket and get it'; and says, 'Jim, you want to go with us.' So we went over to the old sawmill stand on Jack Looney's place, and he says, 'You fellows wait a few minutes,' and we was there about five minutes, and he came back and let Walter have what he wanted, and he says, 'You can have more if you fellows want it,' and we went back to his house and come to the spring, and we stayed and talked awhile, and Jack got up and said he was going to the house, and went on, and Walter and Jim and myself talked for a few minutes and went on behind him, and I stopped at the barn. I had to go through the old barn to get to the house, and Walter and Jim went on back to the house. I imagine I was at the barn about fifteen minutes, and I went on out towards the chicken house, and the door to the chicken house faces southeast--you can't see that door coming from the barn, and before I got there I heard Jack and Jim cussing and when I got there Jack had Jim by the throat pushing his head against the chicken house. I says, 'Wait a minute you fellows, don't do that, you are brothers-in-law, and live down there together and have knowed one another a long while,' and they quit, and Jack and Walter went in the chicken house, and Jim and myself went out to the woodpile, and it was thirty feet to the chicken house, and I was ribbing Jim about having to go to the army, and I told him I was going to try again real soon; and he says, 'You had better watch Jack,' says, 'He told me he was going to kill you this morning,' and I told him 'maybe not.' He was drinking, and he said he was going to the house and shave. Where he went I don't know, and Jack went in the house ahead of Walter and myself--he did not say anything to me, in fact he never spoke to me any more after I saw him at the chicken house--and he was eating, and Walt and myself sat down, and Jack usually is a very large eater, and he got up from the table and never said a word to any one and walked out.

'And Walt and myself finished eating and went into the living-room and set down, and Walt asked me if I would roll him a cigarette, and I did. He was drinking pretty heavy, in fact he was drunk. And I rolled him a cigarette and lit it for him, and he got up and walked out, and I got to thinking, 'Jack is already mad, and Walter is drinking,' and Jim he was drinking, and the Sunday before I had been down to Charlie DeLong's--I had been so sick on Christmas--and pay him some money I owed him, and I thought I would go and not come in contact with Jack because I knew when he was drinking and mad he was a violent man and he would kill you because he had the most violent temper I ever saw a man and the best fellow when he wasn't mad; and I started out the back door, and Jack stepped up to the well in the back yard with an empty pail like he was coming for water, and turned to some one that was behind him and says, 'Where in the hell is Dock?' says, 'I am going to tear his damn throat out'; and what Jim told me and what he said then scared me, and I know what Jim told me must be true, and I stepped back in the house to keep from coming in contact with that man--I don't know why he was mad at me because once before he got mad at me and I did not know what was the reason, and got after me with an ax, and I left from down there, and he sent me word several times he wanted to make an apology, he was wrong; and I did not go back until I met him at Flowery Branch and he asked me to forgive him and he said,...