Garland v. State, 18675
| Decision Date | 11 October 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 18675,18675 |
| Citation | 211 Ga. 44,84 S.E.2d 9 |
| Parties | Benjamin B. GARLAND v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
Where the published words in an indictment for the offense of libel are incapable of any construction other than that they are not defamatory of the person named in the indictment, the indictment is subject to general demurrer.
Wesley R. Asinof, M. T. Hartman, 3rd, Atlanta, W. E. Watkins, Alfred D. Fears, Jackson, S. B. Wallace, Griffin, for plaintiff in error.
Hugh Sosebee, Sol. Gen., Forsyth, Harvey J. Kennedy, Sol. pro tem., Barnesville, for defendant in error.
Benjamin B. Garland was indicted for the offense of criminal libel. General and special demurrers to the indictment were overruled, and he filed a writ of error to the Court of Appeals. That court transmitted the bill of exceptions and record to this court because the case was one involving the constitutionality of a statute and falling within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
The indictment charged that, on February 6, 1953, the defendant did maliciously print and publish and cause to be printed a certain false, scandalous, and defamatory libel in a newspaper published in the City of Macon and circulated in Monroe County, the Macon Telegraph, which blackened the character, honesty, virtue, integrity, and reputation of Honorable Frank B. Willingham, who was then Judge of the Superior Courts of the Flint Judicial Circuit. The news article as set forth in the indictment was as follows:
'Garland blasted the entire investigation from his Jackson home and stated 'I did not get elected to resign, and I'm not going to resign or even consider resigning.' He added that 'someone is attacking me, and I know who is masterminding this attack.' The solicitor was asked to name the person in question, but he replied 'I cant't do that for I would be held in contempt of court.' Garland lambasted the jury probe by saying that He followed this up by opinion that 'I'd hate to be tried for anything in Monroe County right now. If I was on trial I surely would request a change of venue and a change of judge.''
By innuendo, the indictment states that in the article which referred to some one who was masterminding the attack, and the statement by Garland that if he named the person, he would be held in contempt of court, and that if he was on trial in a criminal case in Monroe Superior Court, he would request a change of venue and a change of judge, he was referring to Judge Willingham.
The special demurrers, other than grounds 7 and 8, merely amplified the general grounds of the demurrer.
Whether the charge made by the defendant was indictable as being a criminal libel is dependent upon the question of whether or not the words used are defamatory. If as a matter of law it can be said that the publication is incapable of any construction other than that the words are not defamatory, then the indictment is subject to general demurrer. State v. Darwin, 63 Wash. 303, 115 P. 309, 33 L.R.A.,N.S., 1026. Though a defamatory charge may be made in indirect terms or by insinuation, the publication must be construed as a whole, and the words charged as being defamatory are to be taken in their plain, natural, and ordinary meaning, to be understood by the court as other people would understand them, according to the sense in which they appear to have been published and the idea they were meant to convey. The court will not hunt for a strained construction in order to hold the words used as being defamatory. We are confined to the meaning of the words as actually used, and not upon a construction placed thereon by the State in its innuendo in the indictment. Diener v. Star-Chronicle Pub. Co., 230 Mo. 613, 132 S.W. 1143(5), 33 L.R.A.,N.S., 216. The purpose of innuendo is to explain ambiguities in the charge made in the statement, and connot introduce any new matter. Central of Ga. Ry. Co. v. Sheftall, 118 Ga. 865(1), 45 S.E. 687.
Where the words can bear but one meaning, and that is that they are obviously not defamatory, the office of innuendo cannot make the words defamatory. Australian Newspaper Co. v. Bennett, 1894 A.C. 284. The intent and meaning of the alleged defamatory statement must be gathered not only from the words singled out as being libelous, but from all parts of the publication, in order to show its meaning. Times Pub. Co. v. Ray, Tex.Civ.App., 1 S.W.2d 471; Bathrick v. Detroit Post & Tribune Co., 50 Mich. 629, 16 N.W. 172. Where the words of an alleged defamatory statement are so vague and uncertain that they could...
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...440 (S.D.Ga.), aff'd, 580 F.2d 859 (5th Cir. 1976). A defamation may also occur in indirect terms or by "innuendo." Garland v. State, 211 Ga. 44, 84 S.E.2d 9 (1954). If the publication is not libelous per se and has no necessarily defamatory meaning but can be understood in more than one wa......
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