Birdsong v. State
| Citation | 48 S.E. 329,120 Ga. 850 |
| Parties | BIRDSONG v. STATE. |
| Decision Date | 09 August 1904 |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
RECEIVING STOLEN GOODS — ACCOMPLICE—NEW TRIAL—OBJECTIONS TO JURY—INSTRUCTIONS—EVIDENCE.
1. In a case of receiving stolen goods, the principal thief is not an accomplice of the receiver of the goods, within the meaning of Pen. Code 1895, § 991, providing that an accused person may not be convicted on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice.
¶1. See Criminal Law, vol. 14, Cent. Dig. § 1088.
2. It is not cause for a new trial in a criminal case that the panel from which the jury was selected was the same panel from which had previously been chosen a jury which convicted a brother of the accused upon evidence of the same witness relied upon to convict the accused, no objection having been made to the panel before going to trial.
3. On the trial of one indicted for receiving stolon goods, it is not error to charge, in effect, that guilty knowledge is essential to a conviction of the accused, but that such knowledge may be inferred from circumstances which would, in the opinion of the jury, lead a reasonable man to believe that the goods were stolen.
4. The charge, as a whole, was fair and explicit; the evidence fully warranted the verdict; and it was not error to overrule the motion for a new trial.
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error from Superior Court Bibb County: W. H. Felton, Jr., Judge.
Dave Birdsong was convicted of receiving stolen goods, and brings error. Affirmed
John R. Cooper and T. J. Cochic.n, for plaintiff in error.
Wm. Branson Sol Gen., for the State.
The accused was convicted in Bibb superior court of the offense of unlawfully buying and receiving stolen goods, knowing them to have been stolen. He made a motion for a new trial, which was overruled, and he excepted.
1. It is contended that the court erred in failing to charge the jury the provisions of Pen. Code 1895, § 991, to the effect that the accused could not be convicted on the unsupported and uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. It was urged that such a charge was applicable in this case, for the reason that the principal witness relied upon by the state (one Johnson) confessed to having stolen the property which it was charged the accused received, and that therefore he was, in law, an accomplice of the accused. The indictment charged that the goods in question were stolen by two persons (Johnson and Tolliver), and on the trial the state proved that both had been convicted. Johnson was then placed upon the stand, and testified to every fact necessary to make out a case of receiving stolen goods against Bird-song, the accused in the present case. His testimony was corroborated by a number of proven facts and circumstances; but, under the decision of this court in the case of Springer v. State, 102 Ga. 447, 30 S. E. 971 it was not necessary to the conviction of the accused that Johnson's testimony should have been corroborated. In the case cited it was ruled that an accomplice is one who is associated with others in the commission of a crime, all being principals. "Participation in the commission of the same criminal act and In the execution of a common criminal intent is necessary to render one criminal, in a legal sense, an accomplice of another; and if between two persons who may be engaged in a criminal enterprise, in the execution of which two separate offenses may be committed, there is not this concurrence of act and intent, though each may commit a crime, neither is, in legal contemplation, an accomplice with the other." In Lowery v. State, 72 Ga. 649, and in Allen v. State, 74 Ga. 769, it was ruled that, although a witness may be accessory after the fact, he is not an accomplice, within the meaning of our statute providing that no conviction can be had in any case of felony upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. In the Springer Case, supra, Mr. Justice Fish cited a number of authorities in support of the ruling made, and we deem it sufficient to conclude the discussion on this branch of the case by merely referring to the convincing opinion there delivered.
2. It is also complained that "the court erred in putting the defendant, D. L. Bird-song, upon trial before the same panel of jurors, consisting of forty-eight men, from which panel the jury had been selected, and had already tried and convicted his b...
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